


you will open your wounds (and make them a garden)

by blackkat



Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe Xanatos, Brief Torture, Clones, Complicated Relationships, Dimension Travel, Humor, Identity Issues, Idiots in Love, M/M, Romance, Snark, Star Wars Typical Loss of Limbs, eventually, who is slightly less of an asshole
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:48:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27957155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/pseuds/blackkat
Summary: His head hurts, and Xanatos would very much like to find whoever chained him up facedown on a filthy stone floor and remove their spleen with a rusty spoon.(Or: Xanatos is not a Jedi, not a pawn, not in the right universe, and most of all he isnot amused by any of this.)
Relationships: CCC-2224 | Cody/Xanatos (Star Wars), Obi-Wan Kenobi & Xanatos (Star Wars)
Comments: 231
Kudos: 1284
Collections: Absolute favourites





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Because Cher is a terrible wonderful enabler and I am unable to resist.

His head hurts, and Xanatos would very much like to find whoever chained him up facedown on a filthy stone floor and remove their spleen with a rusty spoon.

There is, potentially, a way to _move_ his face from the filthy stone floor, but since that rather requires moving in general, and _that_ seems like the perfect way to finally make his head escape his shoulders, Xanatos is reluctant to try it. Even if it means his cheek is right next to the crusty print of some lout’s boot, and his hair is dragging in substances he doesn’t even particularly want to _think_ about.

Grimacing, Xanatos makes a slow, careful attempt to twist his hands, feeling the lack of give in the metal, the rattle of the chains. His headache is less horrific than it was when he first woke up, but—unpleasant still. Probably because of the head wound that caused it, though Xanatos can't quite remember how it happened. There's dried blood, though, a throbbing that’s centered just above his temple, and a sinking, roiling sense that he did something he’ll never be forgiven for.

That, at least, is nothing new.

Granta, Xanatos thinks, and it’s almost startling. He breathes in, rattling in his chest, and—he was going to see Granta. Had hired a body double, slipped away in the night, vanished from Telos without a trace to keep anyone from following him back to his son, and had intended to spend the week with him, not just a handful of stolen seconds between other matters. He’d been on his way, disguised and traveling like any other regular passenger, and then—

Something. His head hurts, and he can't quite remember. His Grandmaster? But…Dooku just gained a place on the Council. He’d told Xanatos that himself, when he’d commed him to inform him of Feemor’s new padawan. There was no reason for him to be in a dark corner of a busy spaceport, halfway between Telos and Nierport VII.

And—there had been something wrong. Something wrong with Dooku. Xanatos deserted the Order years ago, but he can recognize a Dark Jedi when he runs face-first into one.

But what in the universe could make _Dooku_ , one of the most devoted Jedi Xanatos has ever met, the man who pulled Xanatos back from the depths of his own darkness, fall to the Dark Side in the space of a _week_?

Gingerly, Xanatos shifts his head, the merciless glow of the light above making his head throb. He grits his teeth, though, pushes through, and it feels like far too many missions with Qui-Gon that wandered into disaster before they managed to drag the situation back to victory. But—

There's no Qui-Gon this time. No Feemor coming look for them, or Master Tahl sweeping in with a last-minute rescue. Just the too-loud beat of Xanatos’s heart, the clink of the chains, and the unsteady rasp of Xanatos’s breathing getting faster in the silence.

Panic won't help, Xanatos tells himself viciously—always vicious, now, with the truth. He knows his own weaknesses. Panic won't help him here. Using the Force through fear and anger is the gateway to the Dark Side, and he fell once. It means he has to be twice as careful as anyone else. Even small things need twice the concentration, and he closes his eyes tightly, breathes out. Breathes in slow, thinks of a pool of still water in the darkness, and the way its surface ripples backwards and forwards with his breaths.

He used to imagine a flame in the darkness. Never again.

When he reaches out, though, there’s no immediate reaction. The chains shift faintly, but they stay where they are, heavy on Xanatos’s skin, and it feels like he’s pushing across a vast distance, trying to influence something far, far away. After a moment of straining Xanatos gives up with a breathless curse, pressing his forehead to the stone as he tries to get his wind back. He’s gasping like he just ran a mile, regardless of the fact that this should be _easy_.

Maybe, he reflects grimly, the headache isn't _all_ from the hit on the head.

Trying to plan his grand escape is made quite a lot harder by the lack of concrete information, even more so than his lack of connection to the Force. There are several shapeshifter species in the galaxy, and any of them impersonating Dooku is far more likely than Dooku turning on the Order within a week. Xanatos can't think of any Clawdite Jedi who have fallen in the last few decades, but—that doesn’t preclude someone training them outside the Temple, raising them in the darkness. He certainly _felt_ darkness, in that moment before they hit him.

Xanatos has plenty of enemies who want his head on a pike, but very few that are clever enough to think to pull off something like this, and that’s the way he likes it. Following him, tricking him, _drugging_ him—it speaks to a level of planning that Xanatos should have heard something about. Even a handful of whispers would have reached him, if the perpetrators spent any time in most criminal circles.

If they managed to see this through without alerting anyone, anywhere, Xanatos will be wholly impressed with their skill, and might even mildly regret murdering them all. Good help is so hard to find, after all.

Should the worst happen and Xanatos not find his own way free, he’s in for a miserable week. His steward won't look for him for seven days, and while she’ll likely raise an alarm as soon as Xanatos doesn’t arrive home, it’s longer than Xanatos wants to be held captive in a smelly, too-bright room.

There’s also an added incentive to free himself, in the form of knowing that it will likely be Feemor who comes to rescue him. Potentially also dragging Obi-Wan along, which is a fate worse than actual death.

Qui-Gon won't come. Xanatos burned that bridge _thoroughly_ when he was sixteen, and he isn't even sure he would want to rebuild it if he could.

Gritting his teeth, Xanatos forces himself up, rolls over. Gets his knees underneath himself, then sits back, trying to even out his breathing and stop his vision from swimming. His head throbs, but he mutters a curse and forces himself to lift his head, to get his hair out of the dirt if nothing else. Getting himself upright is a small accomplishment in the scheme of things, but—

The bolt on the door screeches as it’s drawn, and Xanatos looks up just in time to see it swing wide, a familiar figure framed in the opening.

“That,” Xanatos says, low and vicious, “is not a face you should borrow casually, vagrant.”

The man who looks precisely like a more worn Dooku raises a brow, taking a precise step into the cell. He’s in dark colors, and Xanatos knows fine cloth when he sees it, would recognize the implied wealth even without the subtle glitter of the chain and brooches at the throat. It’s ridiculous; Dooku has always favored nice things, but he’s a _Jedi_. He wears the clothing of the Order, accented with touches from Serenno. Nothing this overtly wealthy, certainly.

More than his clothes, though, is the feel of the Force around him. Something twisted, corrupted, _dark_ , like every one of Xanatos’s worst dreams made flesh.

“Hello, grand-padawan,” the imposter says, and it’s Dooku's voice, pitch-perfect. His diction, his smile, slow, but—

Wrong, Xanatos thinks, a shiver tracing down his spine. The same way the Force around him twists with darkness, this man has taken Dooku's voice and expression and made them _wrong_.

“Grandmaster,” Xanatos returns, cuttingly polite. He can play along if that will help his captors drop their guard. “To what do I owe this unexpected honor? You could have just waited until the next time we had tea.”

Dooku's mouth curls, but there’s nothing of humor in it, not so much as a trace of actual amusement. “I see you still have that sharp tongue, Xanatos. It is a relief to see you have not changed so much.”

There's something off. Something is shifting, sliding out from under Xanatos’s feet where the control of this situation is concerned, and it’s not as if he had much control to start with. But—he feels off balance, unsteady. He can't tell if this shapeshifter is trying to play Dooku as he is or not, and either way he dislikes it.

“The only _change_ I was planning was a change in scenery,” Xanatos bites out. “You have rather thoroughly ruined my vacation, I’ll have you know.”

One of Dooku's brows rises, but he doesn’t otherwise react. “I had high hopes this time,” he says, taking a step forward. Xanatos eyes the hand coming towards his face and considers biting it, but there's no way of knowing what diseases he’ll pick up if he tries it, so he refrains.

It’s never been more tempting than it is when Dooku's fingers press against the broken circle burned into his cheek.

“A positive sign,” he says, coolly satisfied, and steps back. His hand disappears beneath his cloak, and Xanatos tenses, but—

When Dooku's hand reappears, he’s holding Xanatos’s lightsaber.

Xanatos _snarls_ , shoving up to his feet in one hard motion. “That is _mine_ ,” he growls.

Dooku makes a sound of amusement, not faltering for a moment. He turns the leather-wrapped hilt over, studying it, and then says, “You always did have an eye for the finer things, Xanatos.” Deftly, he ignites it, and Xanatos holds very, very still as the dark orange blade flares to life, a hand’s breadth from his chest.

“And here I had hoped it would be red,” Dooku says, low. “You disappoint me, my boy.”

Xanatos breathes in, breathes out, raises his chin. “Nowhere near as much as I have been disappointed today,” he says. “I can assure you of that.”

Dooku makes a soft sound of amusement, circling Xanatos, Xanatos’s orange blade still lit in his grip. “Really, you would reject your grandmaster so quickly? I find myself in the unenviable position of seeking an apprentice, Xanatos, and to my everlasting regret, you have been dead here for years already. I had thought to search further afield, and you seemed the most promising candidate.”

It takes a long moment for Xanatos to process those words, another to make sense of them. _Dead **here**_ , he thinks, and it’s harder to breathe than it should be. Dead _here_ , implying this is somewhere else. Not where Xanatos was, but somewhere else entirely.

He feels cold, and it’s not just the chill of the shackles wrapped around his wrists, the heavy chains bolted to the floor.

“And I assume you took no consideration for my schedule in this search,” he says, but it’s a weak retort; his lips feel numb, and it’s hard to focus on anything except the faint ringing in his ears. But—candidate. One of many, potentially. If Xanatos isn't the one this warped shadow of Dooku is actually looking for, the odds that he’ll simply be killed are…high. “I must say, the version I know of you actually has manners.”

Dooku's smile is perfectly cold. “The version you know of me is a fiction, carefully maintained. I am the only truth that exists. And you, my boy, are the apprentice I need.”

Xanatos takes a breath, considers the best phrasing for his response, and breathes out. “Grandmaster,” he says politely. “It is my dearest, most heartfelt wish that you get karked by a bantha in a skirt and heels.”

Dooku's expression freezes, darkens. He raises a hand—

Xanatos hits the back wall of the cell, kicking, struggling, trying to choke out a breath as an invisible hand around his throat goes impossibly tight. It lifts him right off the ground, holds him there, and Xanatos wants to call his lightsaber to him, wants to turn it on Dooku, but there are spots spinning behind his eyes. He can _feel_ Dooku crushing his throat—

And then the grip is gone. Xanatos hits the floor in a heap, wheezing, choking, and above him there's the hiss of a lightsaber snapping off.

“I dislike having to reprimand another apprentice so harshly,” Dooku says coldly. “But if you defy me, I will punish you. In the meantime, Xanatos, you will remain here, and I hope you use the time alone to consider my offer. I only wish to share my power. You would be wise to accept.”

The power of the Dark Side, Xanatos thinks, and closes his eyes, furious, _wrathful_.

Xanatos knows precisely what the Dark Side is like.

“You assume,” he gets out, half-strangled still, “that I would ever _share_ power.”

There's a quiet sound, almost amusement but still not quite. “I _assume_ ,” Dooku counters, “that the boy who very nearly killed Qui-Gon a dozen times will be wise enough to see that he could rule the galaxy.”

Despite himself, Xanatos opens his eyes, blank shock the only thing he can feel. He stares at the tangles of his own hair hiding his face, stunned, trying to understand. Qui-Gon. He almost _killed_ Qui-Gon, and not just once but many times? That’s…

Not impossible, Xanatos thinks, stomach sinking, something cold lodged in his gut. It’s not nearly as impossible as he would like it to be, particularly if this Dooku fell and wasn’t present to drag Xanatos at sixteen kicking and screaming back into the light.

Above his head, there are steps, precise, loud. Dooku turns on his heel and sweeps out of the cell, the door falling shut behind him and locking with a screech of metal, the hum of some sort of field activating. Then Dooku is gone, taking that roiling, rotten darkness with him, and the silence creeps back in.

Xanatos breathes, and closes his eyes, and tries not to think about anything too hard at all.

His head still hurts, and now he’s going to have a necklace of bruises, too. Clearly nothing about this day is going in his favor.

For all of Xanatos’s innumerable and oft-touted virtues, patience is one he sadly lacks _entirely_ , and it’s possible this twisted ghost of Dooku knows that, because he shuts Xanatos up in his cell and leaves him there without so much as a daily round for food and water. Not that there would be any way for Xanatos to eat or drink except by shoving his face directly into the container, since his hands are still very firmly shackled behind him.

It’s barbaric. It’s _maddening_ , because Xanatos doesn’t do well being left alone with his own thoughts, and like this—

Well. There's apparently a version of him, somewhere in the press of dimensions, that thought repeated murder attempts against Qui-Gon Jinn were a good idea.

Xanatos thumps his head back against the wall, not trying to make his concussion worse, but entirely willing to risk a light touch of brain damage for some distraction at this point. He takes some comfort in the knowledge that his assassination attempts apparently failed so thoroughly that it got this version of him killed, likely in the attempt, but it’s a sour sort of comfort—Xanatos likes to think that he could succeed in anything he puts his mind to, up to and including murder, and it’s rather undignified to realize that he failed. Not that he actually _wants_ Qui-Gon dead.

If he tried to kill Qui-Gon in this universe, that probably implies that he tried to kill Obi-Wan, too. Feemor is going to be so disappointed in him. Assuming Xanatos didn’t try to kill him too.

With a deep grimace, Xanatos shifts, stretching his legs out as best he can and then recrossing them as he sits up straight. He has no idea how long it’s been since Dooku's appearance, because the light under the door hasn’t shifted at all, but going by how thirsty he is, it’s been at least a day and he’s _bored_. Bored and angry and desperately curious to know how Dooku is managing to reach across _dimensions_ and pull innocent travelers out of their own lives to dump them into the toxic swamp of his presence.

That _is_ what this is, Xanatos is sure of it. More than just being a logical conclusion drawn from Dooku's words and Force presence, it _feels_ right, and Xanatos isn't a Jedi anymore, but he’s still just as tapped into the Force as anyone raised mostly in the Temple. This isn't _his_ Dooku, and this isn't his dimension, and somehow, something is letting this Dooku go digging through universes not his own.

Xanatos doesn’t like that at _all_.

Carefully, slowly, Xanatos closes his eyes, focuses. He wants his lightsaber back—it took him _years_ to find a crystal that spoke to him after his first was destroyed, and the idea of this Dooku's slime-worm hands all over it makes rage crystalize in his chest, curl through his veins.

He’s not thinking about how there might be no way to get back to his own universe. Dooku is Dark; the odds that he’ll politely return Xanatos to where he should be are miniscule. About the same as the odds that he even cared to figure out how to return anything at all, in this quest.

Entirely fed up with this forced confinement, the added prison of his thoughts, Xanatos eyes the width of the cell—narrow, cursedly—and the length of chain securing his cuffs to the floor—insufficient even for the narrowness of the cell—and then sourly gives up on the idea of pacing. It wouldn't make him feel _better_ , and would likely drive him to the point of wanting to punch walls, but at least it would be _movement_ —

Muffled, muted, but still entirely obvious in the silence, something explodes.

Xanatos’s head snaps up fast enough to make his skull ache, and he freezes there, trying not to breathe too loudly as he listens intently. The silence is heavy, weighted, but after a long, long moment he thinks he catches the sound of shouting voices somewhere even further away, blaster fire—

The door opens, and a pair of looming droids with electrostaffs march in. Behind them, framed in the doorway, Dooku gives him a dark look, and says, “Grand-padawan. I hope you’ve considered your answer.”

“Something about a bantha in a skirt and heels?” Xanatos bites out. “I can't recall my exact phrasing, but I believe the sentiment remains.”

Dooku's mouth thins, but he inclines his head, one precise tip that _aches_ with familiarity, because Xanatos has seen it a thousand times before. Just—never like _this_.

“Very well,” he says. “I will leave my guards with you. They make a _most_ convincing argument if you bother to pay attention.”

Xanatos sets his jaw, eyeing the staffs they're carrying. Particularly convincing to Jedi, he’s sure, since electric shocks can disrupt concentration enough to leave the Force all but untouchable. “And to think,” he bites out. “Qui-Gon once admired your willingness to take matters into your own hands.”

There's a moment of perfect silence, and then Dooku breathes out. “It would do you well,” he says softly, “not to speak ill of the dead.”

Something in Xanatos’s chest lurches, and he twitches back before he can help himself. _Dead_? Qui-Gon? But Qui-Gon is like an eternal migraine, impervious and unchanging, never fading. If he’s _dead_ —

If he’s dead here, is Xanatos the one who killed him?

Deliberately, like a taunt, Dooku draws Xanatos’s lightsaber from his belt and places it gently on the floor, in a spot Xanatos already knows is well out of reach. “Perhaps you will still manage to surprise me, Xanatos,” he says coolly. “Unimaginable power awaits you outside this door, assuming you have the will to seize it.”

Xanatos sets his jaw, and—if he were still an angry sixteen-year-old boy, manipulated by his father, consumed by darkness, it might be tempting. But he isn't, and this Dooku is an arrogant pillock, and Xanatos would spit at his feet if it didn’t feel unbearably like the sort of reaction Obi-Wan’s insufferable brat of a padawan would have.

“I hope that ugly cloak chokes you in your sleep,” he says spitefully, and Dooku snorts.

“As I hope that you may be taught to mind your tongue, Xanatos,” he returns, and sweeps out of the cell before Xanatos can get a retort in, the door slamming shut behind him.

Xanatos eyes the droids as they turn on him, eyes his lightsaber, eyes the door. When he reaches for the Force again, it’s still distant, unreachable, and he breathes out harshly. Raises his chin, braces, and refuses to rise to his feet and face them. They're hardly worth the effort.

“Do get on with it,” he says darkly, settling back against the wall like he’s still immensely bored. “I have a very tight schedule and you're interrupting. I had a deep brood on the calendar for this hour, and if you push it back too far it will cut into my dramatic lamentation time.”

There's no answer, of course.

“The strong and silent type?” Xanatos asks facetiously. “Oh my. How _tintilating_ —ah!”

The blow catches him in the side of the head, knocks him sideways right to the ground, and Xanatos strangles a cry at the crackling buzz of electricity radiating through his nerves, harsh and stinging. He takes a moment to catch his breath, staring at the dirty stone, and then says, “If you scorched my hair, I'm afraid I'm going to have a _lot_ of problems with you, my friend.”

If the droids are in any way put off by the threat, it doesn’t show. The other one steps in, raising its staff, and Xanatos takes one look at it and tries to throw himself to the side, but the long blade drives right through his shoulder with a crackle of electricity. Metal scrapes stone, and Xanatos can't stop the scream that wrenches from him, the lash of fury that rises right along with the pain. He throws his good hand out, reaching, _desperate_ , but the lightsaber on the ground doesn’t move—

Something heavy hits the door, and it flies open with a crash. There's a shout, blaster-fire, and an explosion of scrap metal rains down on Xanatos as the head of the droid above him is blown clean off. He jerks, but even as he pushes up a shape in white armor slams into the other droid, plowing it into the wall with a crash. Xanatos gets a tangled impression of an orange sunburst, a helmet, and then a boot lashes up, out. The man drives his foot into the center of the droid’s chest, metal denting, and then swings his blaster like club. It takes the thing’s head off, and it staggers, raises its staff.

Perfectly calm, the soldier takes three steps back, flips his blaster up, and fires six shots in quick succession. The droid crumples, and the man turns to the next one as it pulls itself out of the stone, dispatches it the same way, and then shoulders his blaster like this is all a perfectly average day at work for him.

“Sir,” he says, and steps forward—

Xanatos’s lightsaber goes clattering away from his foot, and he jerks his head down, then freezes. Curses, loud and vicious, and snatches it up, but before Xanatos can even open his mouth to protest, the soldier is crossing the cell, dropping to one knee and pulling a vibroblade out of sheath on his utility belt. “General,” he says, like he’s correcting himself, but that makes no _sense_. “Sorry, sir, we had no idea Dooku had a captive. Are you all right?”

The hum of the blade slicing through the chains might as well be music, and Xanatos lets out a breath of relief, dragging his arms forward. It _hurts_ , and he hisses, but manages to get a hand up to press against the jagged wound in his shoulder. “Better now, I’ll admit,” he says, and the soldier rises to his feet, getting a hand under Xanatos’s arm and pulling him along. “And you are?”

“Commander Cody, sir, of the 212th Attack Battalion.” He eyes Xanatos for a moment, then raises his arm, activating the comm there. “I need the closest medic to my location. Dooku was holding a general in his dungeons.” Before Xanatos can protest the title, he lowers the comm, then asks, “Sir, was Dooku here?”

Clearly Dooku is their target, Xanatos thinks, and it’s a little viciously pleased. “Yes,” he says. “He slithered off about seven minutes ago, to go practice his evil laugh.”

Cody snorts, but clicks his comm on again. “Waxer, tell the general that Dooku's definitely here, but he’s probably trying to make his escape. He left the dungeon less than ten minutes ago.”

“Yes, sir!” a staticky voice answers, and Cody hooks his hand under Xanatos’s elbow like he’s trying to take some of his weight.

“We should get you out of here, General,” he says. “The last base Dooku rigged to self-destruct.”

“That does sound like his type of overly dramatic.” Xanatos gladly pushes out of the cell, into a wide room with more cells set along the walls. Most of the doors stand open, but one is closed tightly, and Xanatos pauses, eyes narrowing. Dooku had said—

“My lightsaber, Commander,” he says imperiously, and holds out his hand.

Without hesitation, Cody hands it to him. “Sir? We only got one lifesign reading down here.”

Xanatos grimaces, but ignites the blade, stalking across the open area and flicking his blade down hard. It cleaves through the control panel in a spray of sparks, and Xanatos slices through the lock itself, then throws his shoulder against the door, forcing it open with a groan of hinges.

This cell is dark, and in the light of his blade Xanatos can see that the body within is perfectly still, entirely lifeless.

“Kriff,” Cody mutters behind him, sounding gutted, but Xanatos can't look away from the tangle of dark hair, the familiar robes and tabards. There's another lightsaber on the ground, right in front of the doorway, and Xanatos crouches down to pick it up. The hilt looks identical to his own, long and sleek and wrapped in black leather, but when he ignites it, there's a wash of deep yellow light.

Not red either. Dooku must have been so disappointed.

Flicking it off, Xanatos curls his hand around the hilt for a moment, then slides it into his own sash, crossing to the body that’s still chained to the wall and carefully rolling it over. His own features stare back at him, bloodless, eyes open and staring in death, and it takes effort for Xanatos not to wince. Reaching out, he closes the eyes with a light touch, flicks a glance down to where his alter’s cheek is bare and unscarred, and feels something in his stomach twist. This version of him is dressed like a Jedi, likely _was_ a Jedi before Dooku dragged him into this world and tried to turn him to the Dark Side.

At least it didn’t work, Xanatos thinks, breathing out. He hopes this Xanatos didn’t leave a son behind.


	2. Chapter 2

Grimly, Xanatos pushes to his feet, then turns to face Cody. “Dooku is mine,” he says curtly, and pushes past him, leaving the cell standing open. He still can't call on the Force for anything active, but it’s easy enough to know which way to turn, which path to take, and Xanatos heads for a flight of stairs that are only dimly lit.

Heavy footfalls sound, and a moment later Cody falls into step with him. “Sir,” he says, “you should see a medic—”

“What I should see,” Xanatos bites out, “is Dooku's head on a platter, preferably one from his own table. With _garnishes_. An apple in his mouth, perhaps. And a sprig of something herbaceous shoved up his nose.”

Cody chokes on a laugh, quickly coughing to cover it. “Sir,” he says, swift, like that’s going to make Xanatos overlook it, “We already have troops looking for him, and General Ken—”

An explosion rattles the stairway, but from below, not above them. The stairs seem to leap beneath Xanatos’s feet, buckle and jump and _crack_ , and he has half an instant to swear viciously, lurching forward as they tumble out from beneath him, before a hand snatches him unceremoniously by the back of his coat and flings him forward with a cry of effort. Xanatos hits a ledge of stone and scrambles for a firm hold, slips, finally catches himself as he digs his fingers into a crack and hauls upwards. It’s most definitely not the most graceful climb Xanatos has ever managed, but he gets himself up as the stairwell trembles around them and turns through a rain of dust and stone.

“Sir, go!” Cody shouts, but he’s dangling from a half-crumbled stair, and Xanatos can see a flash of metal where it shouldn’t be on the steps below, a flash of wires and something blinking, and feels the dark-hot certainty of _danger_ like a warning flare. Rigged with explosives, he thinks, and if he goes, if he runs for Dooku now—

There's a voice in the back of Xanatos’s head that sounds like Feemor, and one disappointed sigh from it makes the urge shrivel up and _die_.

With a groan at himself, Xanatos judges distances, his own ability right now, and leaps. He lands on a spur of stone that breaks under his boots, abandons with a hard jump, and grabs for the hand that Cody isn't clinging to crumbling stone with. The remaining chunk of stair groans, buckles, and Xanatos swears, digs his boot heels in and _hauls_ , and Cody kicks out, grabs, pulls. He’s a heavy bastard, _ridiculously_ so, but Xanatos strains, puts all of his weight into it, and Cody struggles up until he can get a knee onto the stone.

“Sir—” he starts.

“No time,” Xanatos snaps, not about to dwell on any acts of kindness he’s been spiritually guilted into. He shoves Cody forward, watches him take a running leap and throw himself straight through the air as the ceiling shakes, then grimaces. Gathers himself, reaches desperately for the Force, and feels only the barest flicker of other sense around him, but doesn’t pause. He takes a running step and hits the edge, just as an explosion sounds, and stone gives way.

Off balance, unsteady, Xanatos leaps anyway, sees the edge approaching and knows he’s missed it. Furious, he tries to add some momentum, tries to channel the Force into weightlessness—

A hand in a black gauntlet reaches out, and Xanatos catches it, locks wrists with Cody, and swings forward. He gets a foot out, hits the edge of broken stone as another explosion washes heat and buffering force over them, making the stairway groan, and shoves hard, flipping himself up and over the edge to land in a crouch. Cody doesn’t even hesitate; he grabs Xanatos by the arm and drags him forward, taking the remaining stairs three at a time.

A third boom almost throws Xanatos off his feet, makes Cody grunt and stagger, but there’s light head of them, a window, and Xanatos draws his lightsaber, ignites it, and covers the remaining distance in a few long steps, driving the lightsaber forward. It sinks into transparisteel with a hiss, and Xanatos drags it around in a wide circle, slams a boot into the center of the cut piece, and kicks it free. He ducks through, careful not to touch the molten edges, and gets a half-second glimpse of empty air and green grass far below before he jumps.

The hand around his wrist goes tight, even as Cody follows him over the edge. “Hang on!” he orders, and there's a hum of thrusters, a sharp jerk. The jetpack on Cody's back catches them, spending momentum as the ground surges up to meet them, and Xanatos hisses at the wash of heat—

With a ringing, echoing _boom_ , the entire tower behind them goes up in flames, sending stone raining across the landscape. A block only just misses Xanatos’s head, and his grip on Cody's hand slips, but they're close enough that it’s not a death sentence. Twisting, he gets his feet under himself, lands hard, and rolls, then comes up in a crouch as Cody touches down with a thump. There's a shower of stone shards around them, a billow of smoke, but a moment later the world goes quiet again. The only sound is distant blaster-fire and the echo of voices, and Xanatos closes his eyes, then rises to his feet, breathing hard but not about to let that stop him.

“Well,” he says, and coughs to clear the dust from his throat. “That was precisely as stupidly, uselessly dramatic as I expected from the old bastard.”

Cody's chuckle is rough, but he turns around, glancing back. “If Dooku is cleaning up evidence of whatever he was doing, that means he’s leaving,” he says.

Xanatos brushes off his coat, because it’s _tailored_ and one of his favorites, and then inclines his head. “That direction,” he says, and glances down at his lightsaber, only to feel a sharp shock run through him. It’s yellow, not orange, and he winces, switching it off and quickly shoving it though the wide sash around his waist, carefully tucked at the small of his back where he won't be able to reach for it easily. He’s sure the Jedi version of him wouldn’t begrudge the use of his lightsaber, particularly for an escape attempt, but it still feels like an intrusion.

There's a pause, and then Cody asks quietly, “Are you sure you're up for it, sir?”

“Of course,” Xanatos says, and it’s hard to know where his eyes are through the dark visor of his helmet, but Xanatos does his best to meet Cody's gaze. “I told you about my evil plans for Dooku's serving-ware. How am I supposed to follow through if I don’t hunt him down?”

Cody snorts, but nods, pulling his blaster forward. “After you, then, sir,” he says.

“Call me Xanatos,” Xanatos tells him, in a burst of charity that he doesn’t feel often. “Give that you’ve saved me from being turned into paste three times in the last hour, I think that earns you the right to first names.”

There's a startled pause, but a moment later Cody falls into step with him, heading down the grassy hill towards the place where some trickle of unmuted instinct is telling Xanatos that Dooku will be. “I'm sure you would have been fine,” Cody says finally. “Your lightsaber was in your cell with you, so—”

Xanatos snorts, raising a hand and flexing it. There are stains on his fingerless gloves, and the dark polish on his nails is _chipped_. He eyes it disgustedly for a moment, then says, “Seeing as I'm currently drugged to the gills with something that apparently inhibits any immediate use of the Force, it’s best that you appeared when you did.”

“Drugged,” Cody says, something dark in his voice. “So the lightsaber was a taunt?”

Xanatos snorts. He hesitates slightly as they hit the bottom of the slope, then turns right along a paved path and picks up his pace. “A temptation,” he corrects bitterly. “If I gave in to the Dark Side, likely I could have broken through the drug, but that would mean letting Dooku win, and I would rather eat my left boot.”

There's another startled pause, then a huff. “It’s a nice boot,” Cody says, humor in his voice.

“Thank you, they're krayt dragon leather,” Xanatos says, pleased. He likes a man who knows a thing of value when he sees it. “It would a shame to waste them by eating, rather then jamming them into unspeakable places that Dooku will find _most_ inconvenient.”

“I think I can help with that,” Cody says, and points ahead of them. “There’s a wall up there, and a side gate we couldn’t break through. Some kind of shielding.”

“The perfect way to maintain an escape route,” Xanatos say, scowling, and feels a flicker of urgency. “Hurry. I believe the monkey-lizard has decided to abandon the doomed ship.”

Cody's grunt is all disgust, but he picks up a jog. Xanatos copies him, and he _hates_ being forced to run, but the promise of cornering this Dooku is motivation enough to keep going, even though Cody is quicker than he expects.

It’s also mildly offensive that even as they run, Cody has enough breath to raise his comm again. “General,” he says, but there's only a buzz of static. Cody doesn’t seem overly surprised by the result; he just sighs, flips to another signal, and says, “Waxer, the general lost his comm?”

There's a pause. “Yes, Commander,” the man on the other end of the line says. “I think a magna guard got it. You got out of the tower?”

“Along with Dooku's prisoner,” Cody says grimly. “The one that was alive, at least.”

Waxer sucks in an audible breath, lets it out on a hiss. “Kriff,” he says, and then, “General Muln just got hit by four wings of vulture droids, sir. If Dooku is trying to distract the fighters and blowing up his fortress…”

“We’re going after him, Lieutenant,” Cody says. “Headed east, towards the side gate. Alert the men there, and get Ghost Company ready for another wave.”

“Yes, sir!”

Cody clicks the comm off, then vaults a low stone wall and drops down the long fall on the other side, landing on a broad road that winds up towards an entirely ostentatious keep set into the hillside. It’s all made of white marble, and Xanatos wrinkles his nose, swinging his legs over the edge.

“Dooku's, I presume,” he says disdainfully. “Only he would think _that_ was a good idea.” Clearly turning to the Dark Side destroyed any sense of taste he might have once had, and Xanatos files that away as a previously unrecognized reason to stay firmly on the side of the light.

“Yeah,” Cody says, sounding entirely too amused. He pauses, then steps closer to the wall, reaching up. “Sir, let me catch you. You could break something falling this far.”

Xanatos grimaces, but with the way this day is going, it’s probably not out of the question. Resigned to failure, he reaches for the Force testing whether he’ll be able to cushion his fall, but the fact that it still feels like he’s trying to influence something kilometers away makes him give it up a moment later.

“I expect a pillow to land on,” Xanatos calls down, but he gives Cody a moment to brace, then slides off. Jedi or not, Xanatos hasn’t ever been bothered by heights, and the drop is hardly noticeable. What _is_ noticeable is the quick way Cody grabs him, deft and dexterous, a tight grip around his thighs before Xanatos can hit the ground. And—strong, almost alarmingly so. It’s like he doesn’t even notice Xanatos’s weight, and Xanatos feels his brows rising despite himself.

“ _Well_ now,” he says, amused despite himself, and rests his hands on the orange-painted shoulders of Cody's armor. “Not quite a pillow, but I think it will do.”

With his sense of the Force so blunted, it’s impossible to tell if Cody flushes, or rolls his eyes, or is amused, or any of the tells Xanatos usually looks for when he’s flirting. Still, he doesn’t immediately get dumped on the ground, which is a good start. Instead, Cody takes two steps back, then loosens his grip, and lets Xanatos slide down to the ground in a slow slip that should probably be classified as its own form of flirting.

“There you go, sir,” Cody says, and it’s a little maddening that Xanatos can't read him. “Didn’t bruise you, did I?”

“I would hardly _mind_ ,” Xanatos says airily, but gets his feet under him and turns, finding his gaze pulled towards the fortress. With a frown, he studies it, and then says, “I believe Dooku is up there.”

“Up there?” Cody asks in surprise. “A ship, maybe? There was a landing pad on the other side of the mountain, but—”

“No,” Xanatos interrupts, just as a hum of engines reaches his ears. “Speeders. How good a shot are you, Commander?”

“Very good,” Cody says grimly, and brings his blaster up. “I've never actually hit a Sith, though.”

“Focus on the speeders and leave Dooku to me.” Xanatos closes his hand around his lightsaber, draws and ignites it in one movement. And—he’s sparred with _his_ Dooku more times than he can count, beaten him in a handful of those matches. But that was with the full use of the Force, a set understanding of Dooku's skills and what tactics he would be willing to use. This one is an unpleasant mystery, _and_ Xanatos is operating with a handicap. There's almost no way he can live up to that bit of bravado.

That doesn’t mean he isn't going to _try_.

“Sir,” Cody says suddenly, just as four speeders come into view over a rise. He has his blaster aimed, but his helmet is turned towards Xanatos. “Dooku—what was he doing to you down there?”

The question is an unpleasant kick right to the chest, and Xanatos freezes. Logical, to ask, if Cody thinks they might not make it through this—he can relay the information, make sure whatever army he’s fighting for knows about Dooku's schemes. But at the same time, thirty years of distrust and wariness bites with _teeth_ into his throat, and Xanatos doesn’t know what to say. Races through the options, the potential excuses, the truth, a sidestep.

Knowing what Dooku is doing is an advantage. Whatever Dooku is _using_ to do it is likely a gateway, and if Xanatos can get it before anyone else, he can go _home_. Should the Order get their hands on it, they’ll want to study it, assess the risks, regulate its use. And maybe they’ll allow Xanatos to go home, to use it, but—

He can't take the chance that they won't. Xanatos has spent the last three decades trusting no one more than himself, and ending up stranded in an alternate universe certainly isn't going to change that.

His origin needs to be a secret, then. But Cody saw the Jedi Master Xanatos, and Dooku said that this universe’s Xanatos has been dead for years, so an excuse of some mad set of identical triplets won't work. So that leaves—

“Cloning,” he says, perfectly steady, perfectly sincere, and hears the sharp rasp of Cody's inhale through the speakers. “Dooku cloned us to provide himself with an apprentice, and then tried to get us to fall.”

“Heck,” Cody mutters, and Xanatos summons up a lament about the perils of cloning and doubled souls and identity politics relating to DNA theft, but before he can get the chance to use it, the speeders are cresting the closest rise. Dooku is in the lead, three more of those huge staff-wielding droids behind him, and Cody jerks his head back around, fires in the same moment. One of the droids’ speeders goes spinning out, crashing into the side of the hill with an explosion that billows fire skyward, and Xanatos smiles thinly, planting himself in the middle of the road in front of the gate.

Even from this distance, he can see Dooku's eyes narrow, the way his mouth sets, and—familiar. Unnervingly, horrifyingly familiar, but not when it’s directed at _him_. He isn't used to Dooku treating him anything like an enemy.

Still. _His_ Dooku wouldn’t resort to torture. Wouldn’t fall, wouldn’t drag versions of Xanatos across dimensions and then _murder_ them. Xanatos can face down this bastard wearing his Dooku's face and not feel guilty for it.

Another shot forces a droid to swerve, almost crashing into the other, and Cody makes a noise of satisfaction, shifting. Fires again, and the droid to the left goes flying off the speeder, which careens off to the side. Dooku slows, redirecting another shot with a flick of his hand, and then says severely, “Grand-padawan. Relying on others to rescue you now? How…lamentable your weakness is.”

Xanatos sneers. “The only _lamentable_ thing is your taste, Grandmaster,” he retorts, and spins his lightsaber around his hand as Dooku's speeder comes to a stop, his droid guard beside him. “You tout the virtues of operating alone all you like, but I'm hardly _weak_ for accepting assistance when it’s offered. A lesson you could do well to learn from.”

Dooku snorts, derisive and cold, and swings off the speeder, drawing his lightsaber. It’s a familiar hilt, but when the blade ignites, it’s the wrenching, nauseating crimson that Xanatos sees so frequently in his nightmares. “You gave into the Dark Side once, Xanatos,” he says coolly. “You will resort to it again, I have no doubt. You understand true strength, the power of the Dark. But weak fools twisted your beliefs, turned you away from the right path. Join me, and I will show you the truth beneath their lies.”

 _Your_ _lies_ , Xanatos wants to say, but doesn’t. He just snorts, falling back into a dueling stance that Dooku will undoubtedly recognize and raising his blade. Meets Dooku's narrowing eyes across the space between them, and smirks at him, all taunt.

“You were careless enough to leave my lightsaber entirely within reach,” he says. “Would you like to see all the skill that you’ve dismissed?”

Dooku looks entirely unimpressed by the bluster. “Obi-Wan and his padawan together could not defeat me,” he says coldly. “Surrender, grand-padawan. It would be a shame if I were to have to kill you again.”

Again. Xanatos thinks of the Jedi, dead and staring with his lightsaber meters from his hand. Killed refusing to fall, noble and righteous in a way Xanatos can hardly fathom, and the possibility that the Jedi had a son as well kicks in his chest. Granta, somewhere in another universe, now left without a father, with a mother who’s kept him because Xanatos asked it of her but who can hardly afford it without his assistance.

His breath shakes as it emerges, and it takes all of Xanatos’s effort to strangle his rage.

“Surrender,” he repeats, bland, _distasteful_. “To you? I would rather kiss a bantha’s hairy ass. To the Dark Side? I would rather _die_.”

It might even be true. Xanatos has never had to test it before, and he would rather not, but—he knows right from wrong. He knows what his answer _should_ be.

The distance between what he knows is right and what he does has always been a little greater for Xanatos than most people, is all.

Dooku smiles, thin and menacing in a way Xanatos hadn’t thought his face could be. “I rather think you will find the Dark Side is more to your taste than you had thought, Xanatos,” he says, and the flicker of his eyes to the broken circle branded into Xanatos’s cheek makes Xanatos stiffen. “You are angry, my child. You have been wronged. Together, we can set it right, and see to it that no one else suffers under the immovable yoke of the Jedi's dogma.”

There are about ten things crowding on Xanatos’s tongue, blistering, but he grits his teeth, swallows them down and refuses to give Dooku the satisfaction of voicing them. “Fascinating,” he says instead, full of sharp edges, “that you can play the wise mentor so confidently and still have the brain of a concussed duck.”

Dooku's expression twists, exasperation and offense in equal measure, and Cody chokes. His helmet speakers cut off, like he muted himself, but Xanatos still smirks victoriously. He sees the twitch in muscles hidden under dark cloth a fraction of a second before Dooku moves, and it’s an opening salvo that he recognizes, one he _knows_ , and he leaps forward to meet it, twists to the side in a two-step and lets Dooku's blade skim his own as he ducks in close, drops low. Dooku leaps the sweep of his foot, flips over and comes down with his lightsaber already flashing up to block, but Xanatos falls back instead, forces Dooku to advance and follow.

“So _slow_ in your old age, Grandmaster,” he taunts. “No wonder you need an apprentice to cover for your flaws. You’d best be careful—pick one without enough loyalty and you may end up with a lightsaber through your own spine.”

Dooku's features darken, and he lunges without a word, the strike of his blade almost too fast to see. Xanatos is expecting fast, but not _that_ fast, and he has to rush to parry, wrench his blade around to catch the next strike, dodge the third by a hair’s breadth as it passes his throat. Dooku's satisfaction is an obvious thing, dark, _crawling_ , and Xanatos sees it flicker across his face, sets his jaw, and shifts. He swings for Dooku's head, not the elegant dueling style his Dooku taught him but Qui-Gon’s heavier, more brutal style, like wielding a longsword against a rapier. Knocking the next blow aside, he throws an elbow, knocks Dooku's arm out wide as he tries to correct, and thrusts hard.

Burning scarlet sears through the edge of his sleeve, and Xanatos throws himself backwards just in time to miss the blade that almost takes his head off.

“Skilled, but not nearly as much so as I had hoped,” Dooku says, advancing again. Xanatos retreats, marking each step, trying to pay attention to the sounds of a fight behind him—Cody and the last remaining droid, likely—and the fallen Jedi in front of him in equal measure. He grits his teeth, curses at himself, and then grabs the second lightsaber from his sash and ignites it in a wash of gold. Raises both blades, balanced, steady, and he _has_ trained like this, just—

Not as much as he probably should have, to face down his Grandmaster.

“A charming attempt at bravado,” Dooku says coolly. “Two blades will not help you, boy.”

“Yes, well, grandstanding is hardly going to help _you_ ,” Xanatos retorts. “If you’re scared to face me, _Grandmaster_ , all you need to do is admit it—”

A hand around his throat, and Xanatos tumbles back, hits the wall hard with a cry that’s instantly strangled as Dooku's grip tightens. He claws at his throat, but there’s nothing there to grab, no actual hands, no way he can reach the Force and throw Dooku off. He struggles, and the whirl of a black cloak in front of him makes those struggles redouble but it doesn’t matter.

“I tire of this,” Dooku says, and there's an edge of fury in his voice. “You will come with me, and you will _mind your tongue_. I know Qui-Gon, at least, taught you _manners_.”

Xanatos makes the rudest gesture he’s physically capable of while there are spots blooming at the edges of his vision. Dooku doesn’t look impressed by that, either. He raises a hand, closes it into a fist, and Xanatos feels his feet lift off the ground—

A blue blaster bolt takes Dooku in the arm, and he recoils with a cry. The grip on Xanatos’s throat disappears, and he collapses into a heap, wheezing and gasping, and doesn’t even bother to push himself up before he lunges for his lightsabers, belly-crawling to them and snatching them up. He rolls to his feet, staggers, then throws himself forward, right at Dooku's back.

There's a jerk, and that crimson blade flashes up to meet him, but it’s slower with pain. Xanatos slams his orange lightsaber into it, knocking it wide, and thrusts, and Dooku ducks, leaping back. With a surge of elation, Xanatos follows, twisting to block, strike, withdraw, lunge. He drives Dooku back, hears a shout but doesn’t pause as he brings both blades together, drops low. Dooku hisses, leaps him, but Xanatos lashes out with a foot as he lands, pushes himself up, and without the Force it’s _suffocating,_ like trying to fight on a planet with five times the gravity, but he catches Dooku's lightsaber, swings—

Another shout, louder, closer, just as a blaster fires. Dooku jerks a hand up to block it, and Xanatos takes it at the wrist in one hard blow.

There's no moment for victory, even brief. A force like a battering ram hits Xanatos head-on, and he cries out as he’s hurled back. from somewhere close there’s a shout, and then hands snatch him out of the air, haul him close. Xanatos has enough thought to deactivate his lightsabers half an instant before they hit, a hard body first and then Xanatos on top of it. they skid across the stone, tumble over, and Xanatos sees the wall coming just in time to throw up a hand on instinct. There's a faint ripple, and he can _feel_ some edge of the Force, grabs for everything he can manage and shoves it into a cushion an instant before they hit with a crash.

“Ugh,” Xanatos manages, getting his fingers around smooth plastoid and opening his eyes. Cody is covering him, braced on his elbows and knees, and the antenna on his helmet is bent. Xanatos blinks at it for a moment, not entirely comprehending what happened through the ringing in his head, and then groans, letting his head thump back into the dirt. Dramatically, he drapes an arm over his eyes, and says, “I do believe I'm dead.”

Cody snorts, but at the same moment another shout rises, a speeder’s engine kicks on. Xanatos picks his head up again just in time to see the flare of Dooku's cape as he guns it for the gateway that’s creaking open. There are troopers in white armor like Cody's on the other side, and they fire, but—

Well. Dooku always was one of the best at blocking such things.

“ _Again_ ,” Cody says disgustedly, and then pushes up carefully, shifting off of Xanatos and sliding an arm behind his shoulders. Xanatos doesn’t protest being hauled semi-upright despite the way it makes his head throb viciously and his vision swim black for a moment, just groans pointedly and maybe clings a little to Cody's arm as he tries to remember how to sit up.

“At least he didn’t escape _intact_ ,” Xanatos says, viciously amused, and—he’ll feel sick later, remember cutting off _his_ Dooku's hand in his nightmares. This wasn’t that Dooku. This one was fallen, a murderer. Xanatos _refuses_ to care about maiming him.

“It was a nice hit,” Cody says, and Xanatos snorts, shoving his tangled hair back and out of his face to give Cody a smirk.

“And it was _very_ nice shooting, Commander,” he offers. “I—”

“ _Cody_!” a loud voice with a very familiar Coruscanti accent says, desperate, _furious_. “ _Get away from him_!”


	3. Chapter 3

Xanatos is getting rather tired of being tossed into walls.

He hits hard, and it does no favors for his ringing head, his swimming vision, but there's a wash of _danger_ that spills though instinct and muscle alike, and he’s rolling to his feet before his head even clears. Feet under him, lightsaber up, and the orange blade meets blue in a blow hard enough to make Xanatos stagger. He trips right back against stone, ducks, and Obi-Wan’s lightsaber carves a line through the spot where his head just was.

With an offended hiss, Xanatos throws himself to the side, blocks another blow that tries to cut open his ribcage, and catches a half-second glimpse of blue eyes, an expression set to _murder_ —

“General!” Cody cries, but that makes no _sense_ , because Obi-Wan is still in Jedi robes, would never be anything _but_ a Jedi.

“Stay _back_ , Cody, he’s _dangerous_!” Obi-Wan snaps, and Xanatos is caught wrong-footed by that surge of anger, of _hate_. He staggers, startled, unnerved, because Obi-Wan is always wary and too much Qui-Gon’s sycophant to ever _trust_ Xanatos, but—

This is something entirely different.

A flash of blue makes Xanatos jerk, igniting the yellow blade half an instant before Obi-Wan’s lightsaber catches him in the face. Deflects it, surges forward, orange blade sweeping in a wide arc to push Obi-Wan back, and Xanatos takes three long steps back, grabs for the Force but can't grip it. He curses, lunging back, because if he doesn’t put space between them Obi-Wan is going to try very hard to _actually_ kill him—

Blasters fire, and in the same moment Obi-Wan lunges for him with deadly determination carved into his face.

There's a fraction of a second to decide which to focus on, and Xanatos weighs odds, weighs morals, and curses. He spins, one blade deflecting a bolt, the other sweeping Obi-Wan’s lightsaber down, and takes the second bolt in the thigh with a snarl of pain. His leg buckles, and he hits the ground, expecting nothing but a lightsaber through the chest—

“General, _wait_!” Cody says, and white plastoid is suddenly all Xanatos can see. Cody throws himself bodily over Xanatos, shielding him, but Obi-Wan’s lightsaber is too close, and Xanatos can _see_ the realization in Obi-Wan’s face, the flash of horror that he doesn’t need empathy to feel. Obi-Wan tries to shift, to pull up, but it won't be far enough in time, and Xanatos hisses, grabs Cody, rolls them with all the speed he can manage.

The burning, nauseating heat of a lightsaber sinking through his side is unpleasantly familiar, but thankfully it’s also gone a moment later as darkness eats its way across is vision and brings blessed nothingness with it.

The boneless slump of a body on top of him brings a wash of horror with it.

From above them, there’s a curse that Cody has never heard his general use before, the snap of a lightsaber being shut off, but Cody doesn’t look, can't. He rolls up, one arm tight across Xanatos’s back, and the heartbeat on his HUD is flickering, shuddering, but it’s still there.

“Cody, _move_ ,” Obi-Wan warns, and Cody hasn’t ever heard him overtly angry before, but—

“Sir,” he says, looking up, and it’s not just anger. There's _fear_ written across Obi-Wan’s face. “He’s—”

“A Dark Jedi,” Obi-Wan finishes for him, tight, furious. “He was trained by my Master, and he’s _dangerous_ , Cody.”

There are about thirty things Cody _wants_ to say, but at the same time they all stall on his tongue, lock up in his throat. Xanatos’s vitals flicker on his HUD again, waver, and Cody takes a careful breath. Arguing with Obi-Wan is the last thing he wants to do, but.

The man in Cody's arms is a clone. Whoever Obi-Wan thinks he is, he’s _not_.

“He saved me, sir,” Cody says, deliberate, and doesn’t loosen his grip on Xanatos. “At risk to himself. More than once.”

Obi-Wan frowns, confusion rising, and his gaze flickers to Xanatos, up to Cody's face, slides back. He hesitates, but—

“It’s a trick,” he says grimly, and steps forward. An invisible force drags Xanatos back, dumps him on the ground, and Cody bites down the protest he wants to make. “It’s _always_ a trick, with Xanatos.”

Cody gets his feet under himself, rises. “Sir,” he says, polite but firm, and Obi-Wan is usually right, but he doesn’t have the facts here. “He said Dooku was making clones, General. There was one in the dungeon. _Jedi_ clones.”

Obi-Wan’s eyes go wide, and he freezes.

Well. Not how Cody intended to relay the news, but at least it worked. He huffs, then says, “We managed to beat Dooku here, sir, and he tried to convince Xanatos to go with him, as his apprentice.”

“Force,” Obi-Wan mutters, and rubs a hand over his face. He glances at Cody, looking him over like he’s checking for wounds, and then crouches down beside Xanatos, tipping his head and brushing his hair back to see his cheek. The sight of the deep brand there, a scar like a bisected circle burned into Xanatos’s skin, makes him pull a face, and he sinks back, then lets out a rough breath. “You’re _sure_ , Cody?”

“Yes, sir,” Cody says firmly. “He cut off Dooku’s hand while they were fighting. And he wouldn’t go with him.”

“Yes, well, color me entirely unsurprised that Xanatos wouldn’t obey another person’s orders,” Obi-Wan mutters, but there's less outright venom in it this time. He raises a hand, calling both of Xanatos’s lightsabers to him, and then stops, looking them over. There's something like deep pain on his face as he turns them in his hands, and Cody hesitates, trying to figure out what to say, but he can't think of anything.

“There were magna guards torturing him when I got to the dungeon,” Cody offers quietly, watching Obi-Wan’s face. “Dooku left his lightsaber in the cell with him, but out of reach. He’s drugged, and he can't use the Force, but he said it was to tempt him to the Dark Side.”

“Force,” Obi-Wan says again, rubbing a hand over his face. “Of _course_ Xanatos would come back to life just when we won this campaign.” Before Cody can correct him about this Xanatos being a clone, though, he tucks both lightsabers through his sash, clips his own to his belt, and says, “This is certainly an interesting end to this fight.”

It’s a better one than Cody would have expected, honestly; Dooku losing a hand can only help them in the long run. “At least no one got kidnapped, sir,” he says, with a trace of amusement, and Obi-Wan snorts. He looks tired, though, and his expression darkens as his eyes fall on Xanatos again.

“Don’t say that, Commander. Anakin still hasn’t reported in,” he says dryly. “The day is young yet.” A pause, conflicted, and he sighs, rubbing a hand over his mouth again. “I don’t have the faintest idea what to do with him,” he finally admits.

Cody weighs his potential answers for a moment, but a flicker on his HUD decides him. “I’ll take him, sir,” he offers. “He needs a medic.”

“It’s not the first time he’s been stabbed with a lightsaber,” Obi-Wan says, a little darkly. “I'm sure he’ll find a way to survive, Commander.” Then he stops, grimaces at himself, and shakes his head. “All right. Don’t hesitate to shoot him if you need to, though, Cody. I mean it when I say he’s dangerous.”

Cody thinks of Xanatos on the steps, turning to save him, or the moment before Obi-Wan could have stopped his lunge, and the way Xanatos rolled them and took the blow. “Yes, sir,” he says, allowing that. “I figured Dooku wouldn’t want him as an apprentice if he wasn’t.”

Obi-Wan’s expression twists, and he looks down at Xanatos for a long moment. “I don’t know what happened since the last time we met,” he says, “but the Xanatos I knew wouldn’t hesitate to stab you in the back. So keep both eyes on him, Cody, and use whatever means you have to keep him in our custody. If he joins Dooku, even just as an ally, I feel like this war will go very, very badly for us.”

Something prickles down Cody's spine, but he nods even as he tries to parse the reaction. Xanatos _isn't_ a threat. Cody is sure of that in a way he normally isn't. And he doesn’t _seem_ that dangerous, doesn’t seem like the kind of man who would join Dooku in his quest to take over the galaxy. Especially after Cody saw him with his clone, the grief on his face and the regret in his touch as he closed the man’s eyes. But—Obi-Wan isn't usually _wrong_.

If Cody's wrong, and this is the original Xanatos and not just a clone, it still doesn’t make sense, because he still doesn’t seem like the type who would even give in the Dark Side, let alone become a Dark Jedi. What he said to Dooku— _Surrender. To you? I would rather kiss a bantha’s hairy ass. To the Dark Side? I would rather_ die—

Cody's pretty decent at picking out bullshit, after this long as Marshal Commander. That wasn’t.

“Lieutenant,” he says, and Waxer snaps to attention. “Stay with the general.”

“Yes, sir,” Waxer says quickly, and Obi-Wan casts him a wan smile.

“I _am_ quite capable of protecting myself, Cody,” he says, but it’s amused rather than insulted.

“Sorry, sir, but the number of times you’ve been kidnapped would say otherwise,” Cody tells him, and can't help but grin when Obi-Wan pulls a face he should probably be too dignified for.

“Less times than _Anakin_ , at least,” Obi-Wan says, like that’s a winning argument when he _trained_ Anakin, and tips his head at Waxer. “Cody, make sure he stays unconscious. This way, Lieutenant. Garen is tracking Dooku's speeder, and he’ll meet us at the edge of the mountains.”

“Ready when you are, sir.” Waxer says, and Cody bumps vambraces with him as he passes. Waxer nods back, determined, and Cody can't help but smile a little as he calls his squad around them and follows Obi-Wan at a jog. Ever since Ryloth, Waxer’s been climbing the ranks, and Cody's caught his comms with the little Twi’lek girl he and Boil saved often enough to be able to guess at the reason. Officers get more privileges, and Waxer’s aiming to go back to Ryloth for a visit at the very least.

On his HUD, Xanatos’s heartbeat wavers a little, and Cody takes a breath. He turns back, going down on one knee, and hesitates over the sprawl of limbs for a moment before he just gives in and gathers up Xanatos’s sprawled limbs, sliding his arms under him and lifting him carefully as he activates his comm.

“Wooley, how soon until the medical transport heads up to the cruiser?”

There's a pause, and then Wooley answers, “It’s just about to take off, Commander.”

Relieved, Cody hitches Xanatos up a little higher. “Have it stop at my location first. I've got a wounded prisoner from Dooku's dungeon.”

“It’s on its way, sir,” Wooley promises, and a moment later Cody can see the shuttle lift off. It skirts the part of the battlefield that’s still active, avoiding Dooku's cannons, and Cody watches it circle, come in to land right in front of him, and immediately leaps up into the bay.

“Good to go,” he calls, and the pilot flashes an affirmative back at him, then closes the doors and takes them up. Cody takes a glance around, assessing how many bodies he can see, and—

Well. It’s always hard to see the wounded, but at least they're alive.

With a faint grimace, Cody takes a few steps back towards a clear patch of wall between the stretchers, then sinks down, back braced against the metal. There's not enough room to set Xanatos down anywhere, so after a moment of indecision Cody just settles him in his lap, letting Xanatos’s head fall against his shoulder. He’s breathing steadily, at least, and Cody tips his head back against the wall, closes his eyes.

It’s hard not to think of Obi-Wan’s lunge, the blade of his lightsaber, the way Xanatos rolled them. Jumping between them was maybe a little reckless, Cody is willing to allow, but. Xanatos had already been hurt, and he hadn’t tried to attack Obi-Wan, hadn’t gone on the offensive even when Obi-Wan attacked him. Cody is always willing to trust his general, but—

Cloning. Dooku was _cloning_ Jedi, or Dark Jedi. And Obi-Wan’s words about this Xanatos being different make Cody absolutely sure that he’s a clone and not the original. A clone of a Jedi, meant for something that he refused to do, refused to even consider, and that turns in Cody's chest in a way that would probably make Alpha-17 club him over the head, but Cody can't help it.

Cody's a good soldier. He follows orders, makes his general’s life easier, keeps the 7th Sky Corps in the best shape he can. And he’s _glad_ to be a soldier—he and his _vode_ are the only things standing between Grievous and his droids and the rest of the galaxy, and they're necessary. They're _vital_. But he wonders, sometimes, if this is going to be all they ever get as clones. They were always meant to be nothing but soldiers, bodies and blasters and a force to keep the Republic intact.

But a cloned Jedi makes everything different.

Jedi aren’t supposed to be soldiers, and Xanatos was meant to be a Sith. But he refused. He defied Dooku, cut off his hand, and it was _easy_. It just…it makes Cody think, that’s all. He always has been, but. More solidly, now. With evidence, in a way.

There's a low, pained sound against his shoulder, a faint tip of Xanatos’s head that almost hides a sudden, deep grimace. His fingers tighten like claws on Cody's armor, and Cody can't resist the urge to reach up, cupping the back of his head.

“Easy,” he says quietly, and Xanatos’s rasping breaths shudder into something that shares structural similarities with a laugh.

“Obi-Wan has certainly managed to get more annoying,” he manages, breathless, and Cody pauses. He weighs those words, and—that’s the kind of thing that makes him doubt Xanatos is a clone. He spoke like he had history with Dooku in a way beyond just being raised by him, and that makes Cody wary. But at the same time, there's a flicker of suspicion in Cody's chest, because he _knows_ that the Kaminoans were experimenting with memory transfer, with encoding the template’s memories into a clone. They’d done it to one of the Alpha clones, from the first batch, though Cody never heard what happened to him afterwards—decommissioned when he didn’t meet their standards, probably, because Alpha-17 mentioned something about him naming himself Spar, being excessively independent, and Force knows the Kaminoans wouldn’t have been pleased by that.

“Yeah?” Cody asks, a little wry. “How long ago did you know him?”

Xanatos pauses, and dark eyes slide open. They're blue, Cody thinks. Not black, the way he’d thought, but—dark blue. It’s almost startling.

“I don’t know that I did,” Xanatos says, rough, and Cody's fingers tighten involuntarily in his hair.

Dooku could have tried transferring memories. Maybe he managed it, or maybe he only managed a partial transfer, but—it’s possible.

Or maybe Cody just _wants_ to believe that, to the point of refusing to listen to his general and obey his own common sense.

“How are you feeling?” he asks instead of dwelling on it, and Obi-Wan may have ordered him to keep Xanatos unconscious, but…this is just bending the rules a little. He’s not exactly going to club Xanatos over the head now that he’s awake, anyway. There are better ways to thank him for saving Cody's life.

Xanatos snorts, not even lifting his head from Cody's shoulder. “Like I just got stabbed with plasma,” he says pointedly, though there's no venom in it. Then, grudging, he adds, “Though I suppose Obi-Wan managed to miss anything vital.”

“Impressive, given that he was about ten centimeters from your throat before he corrected,” Cody says dryly.

One dark eye opens again, and Xanatos gives him a withering look. “You mean before you threw yourself in front of him like a sacrifice? And _I_ had to get you as far away as possible?”

Cody doesn’t wince, but it’s close. “I didn’t want the general to kill you,” he says, and—it was the same instinct that says to protect every clone. Just…directed differently than most. Cody should probably feel worse about that than he does. “And it looked like he was trying.”

Xanatos’s expression pulls into something displeased. “Apparently I offended him,” he says, desert-dry, and winces as he shifts. Cody tries to give him a little more room, tries to loosen his grip, but Xanatos resettles a moment later with a hiss that says nothing is comfortable right now.

“Easy,” Cody says quietly. “We’re on the way to medical. I’d let you lay flat but there's no room.”

“As if I’d object to being cradled lovingly by a handsome man. I’ll have you know I’ve dreamed of this,” Xanatos says, and it’s aiming for airy but it’s mostly just pained, and Cody snorts. He has to wonder if the flirting is something inherent to this particular line of Jedi, or if Obi-Wan and Xanatos both just happened to get a double dose of it by chance.

“Try that with the med droids and they might give you extra bacta if you're lucky,” he says dryly, and Xanatos huffs, eyes opening again. He turns his head, casting a look around the interior of the ship, and Cody watches him catalogue, assess, file away. Saw that look before, right after they escaped the tower, and it would be more alarming if Cody hadn’t seen it turned on Dooku, too. Dangerous, but—

Cody's used to dangerous people. All the clones were _made_ to be dangerous. It makes sense that Xanatos would have been as well.

Xanatos breathes out, sinks back against Cody, and the tip of his head to let his long hair hide his face might be accidental, but there's every chance it’s not. “I assume,” he says, a little rough, “that Obi-Wan hasn’t left the Order again.”

 _Again_ isn't what Cody was expecting, and he raises a brow, surprised. “No,” he says, and debates asking about that. Obi-Wan presents himself as the model Jedi, for the most part, and Cody hasn’t thought to ask about his past.

Before he can, though, Xanatos makes a low, intent sound. “And _general_ is a title that comes standard for Jedi Knights now?” he asks blandly.

Cody wasn’t expecting _that_ , either. He raises his other brow to match the first, because that at least should be common knowledge, given the way the war is going. “Yeah,” he says, and Xanatos stills, expression sharpening. “And he’s a Jedi Master. On the Council.”

There's a long, long moment of silence, so long that Cody watches the _Negotiator_ turn from a dot on the horizon to a behemoth filling the viewscreen before Xanatos finally takes a ragged breath and says, with an edge of something vicious, “The Council? Qui-Gon must be so disappointed.”

Cody can't quite make sense of it. Xanatos knows Obi-Wan, but he apparently doesn’t know about the war, doesn’t know anything that could be considered current about Obi-Wan’s life. He wasn’t expecting Obi-Wan’s viciousness, wasn’t prepared for the clones with Obi-Wan. Partial memory transfer? He almost wants to ask if Xanatos was frozen in carbonite, but that doesn’t generally cause memory loss.

“Qui-Gon?” Cody asks instead, because that at least is easily answered.

The wave of Xanatos’s hand is halfhearted, vague against Cody's breastplate. “Our Master,” Xanatos says distastefully, and then pauses. Grimaces, and says, “I assume my lightsaber was removed from my possession. And…his.”

The other clone. Cody thinks of that careful touch again, the way Xanatos ignited his lightsaber and stared at it for a long moment, like he was committing the different color to memory. Wonders, a little, if the reason both Xanatos and the clone in the cell have lightsabers in colors Cody hasn’t seen before is for the same reason clones paint their armor—an easy tell of individuality, readily recognizable.

“The general has them,” Cody confirms, and watches Xanatos’s expression twist. He flicks a glance up as the ship slides into the docking bay, then says, “Arms around my neck. I'm getting up.”

“Hold on to you? Why, I don’t mind if I do.” There's still a faint hiss as Xanatos gets an arm up over Cody's shoulders, and Cody doesn’t comment on the way he sets his teeth and strangles a sound of pain as Cody gets his arms under him and rises, resettling Xanatos against his shoulder. He’s more wiry than Obi-Wan, and shorter, which makes it easier than it could be to lift him, and Cody gets a firm grip, then heads for the side of the ship as the doors open.

“You never stop, do you,” he asks, bemused, and there's a bark of half-bitter laughter against his throat.

“Ask how many people have threatened to cut out my tongue,” Xanatos challenges.

“I’d be more interested in how many people have punched you in the face,” Cody says dryly, and Xanatos pauses like he’s actually trying to count. It makes Cody chuckle, and he says, “You and General Kenobi should compare numbers.”

“Please,” Xanatos says derisively. “Mine would be _far_ higher. Obi-Wan is too meek to make that many interesting enemies, and I'm _far_ more of a bastard.”

“Well, as long as you're self-aware,” Cody says, amused, and takes the turn out of the bay, heading for the far end of the hall.

“There's no entertainment factor in being a bastard if you aren’t aware of it,” Xanatos says grandly, and promptly ruins it by yelping when Cody hitches him up higher to dial in his personal code on the lift.

“Sorry,” Cody says, more amused than sincere.

Xanatos blows a strand of dark hair out of his eyes, and seems to settle on flirting as revenge. “If you keep hauling me around like this, Commander, you're going to make me remember all of those Telosian marriage rituals that involve carrying one another over the threshold and get the wrong impression entirely.”

“Threshold?” Cody echoes, and this is certainly more entertaining than hauling Obi-Wan to the medbay in a storm of protestations of wellness as he bleeds from some arterial wound. “What does a threshold have to do with marriage?”

Xanatos flaps an impatient hand, though it’s noticeably less energetic than before. “The ceremonial gesture of bringing someone into your family to stay,” he says. “And the inherent eroticism of whisking someone off to be ravished in peace and quiet.”

“I don’t know,” Cody says mildly. “Ravishing in public can be fun, too.”

Xanatos blinks, then _smirks_. “ _Commander_ ,” he says, and there's a note of pure delight in it. “How _shameless_. Is that where we’re off to?”

“No,” Cody says firmly. “Medical. You shouldn’t technically even be conscious.”

Xanatos’s snort says very clearly what he thinks about that. “Obi-Wan’s orders, I assume?” When Cody refuses to confirm or deny, he pulls a face. “I should have pushed him into _far_ more puddles as a child, regardless of how disappointed Feemor would have been in my life choices.”

“Feemor?” Cody steps out of the lift as it comes to a halt, and the doors across the hall open for him automatically, admitting him into the controlled chaos of the medbay. There are loud voices, monitors beeping, a dozen droids whirling past, and he pauses, hesitating until one breaks off and beeps an order at him, then buzzes back into motion.

That gets him another careful pause, almost wary. “Feemor,” Xanatos says, like it’s a name he should know. “Our—the first padawan Qui-Gon trained. Blond, roughly the size of a mountain, freckles, a smile that makes your soul shrivel—”

“Most souls, or just yours?” Cody carries him to the bed the droid indicated, then sets him down as carefully as possible. It still makes Xanatos hiss, though, his hand going to the hole burned through his tunic, and Cody grimaces. “Sorry.”

The tip of Xanatos’s chin is acknowledgement and dismissal in the same moment, and he turns his head to look at the trooper in the next bed, the one beyond him. Breathes for a moment, and then says, slightly bitter, “Several people would tell you I have no soul, Commander.” There's another pause, and Cody can't read the expression on his face. “I—is there any chance you can tell me if I'm seeing double, Commander?”

A little surprised, Cody reaches up, pulling off his helmet. “Want me to hold up fingers?” he asks dryly, and raises a brow when Xanatos’s gaze settles on him.

“No,” Xanatos says, deliberate, and then snorts, eyes falling shut as he pulls a face. At himself, apparently. “No, that won't be necessary, apparently.”

Cody hums, leaning against the bed, and it’s halfway to a test. His vibroblade is in easy reach, but Xanatos’s hands don’t so much as twitch towards it. “So,” he says, and that’s a test to. “Cloning?”

The twist of Xanatos’s mouth is all ruefulness, but there's something tired to it as well. “Clearly something you aren’t unfamiliar with.”

“Mostly Kamino is the one doing the cloning, though,” Cody says quietly. “Not Dooku.” And—Sithing hells, but the Kaminoans are bastards, but at least they aren’t _Dooku_. “And clones aren’t Force-sensitive.”

The press of Xanatos’s hand over his wound tightens. “Yes, well, Dooku is under the false assumption that anyone would fall for his trite bantha shite lines,” he says viciously, “when I've heard better out of street corner salesmen. _Clearly_ our lineage has suffered a downward slide.”

“You know a lot about him,” Cody says, watching his face. “And Obi-Wan.”

Xanatos snorts. “Not enough, clearly,” he mutters, and casts Cody a slightly crooked smirk that doesn’t match the look in his eyes. Cody can't tell _what_ look it is, but it’s calculating, almost desperate. “Commander—”

A droid beeps impatiently at Cody before Xanatos can finish, and he jerks aside automatically, stepping back. There's one half-second of reaction that flashes across Xanatos’s face, a twitch like aborted movement, and then he resettles on the bed with a deep grimace. “Yes, yes, I'm aware you need to knock me out, do get on with it.”

The discomfort might not be visible to anyone else, but Cody's not great with medical, either. He takes a deliberate step back to lean against the wall, and says, “Hope you don’t mind a spectator. General’s orders not to leave you alone.”

“So that I don’t blow up the ship?” Xanatos says dryly. “Oh, very well. But I’m rescheduling that. It’s one of my fondest wishes.” The droid trills at him, and he makes a sound of deep offense. “ _No_ , I was not taking recreational drugs, I _was_ drugged, what do you take me for— _ow_ , you blasted little creature—”

Well, Cody thinks, amused. At least this won't be boring, clearly.


	4. Chapter 4

When Xanatos wakes, he can touch the Force again.

It’s the very first thing he notices, the one that strikes him above all others even before he opens his eyes. The sheer _distance_ of it before hardly registered, but like a man not knowing he’s been dying of thirst finally seeing water and realizing his affliction, Xanatos now might as well be _drowning_ in it, and it’s the most glorious feeling he’s had in years.

Of course, the second thing he registers are the binders locking his wrists in front of him, currently wedged uncomfortably underneath his body with far too many edges digging into his chest.

“Ugh,” Xanatos gets out, and rolls over. There is, at least, a decent mattress under him, which is an improvement from the last time he woke up, and he blinks up at the ceiling for a moment, trying to place where he is. It’s a very dull ceiling, however, and unhelpful as well, and after a moment Xanatos closes his eyes and grimaces at the cottony feeling of his mouth. He _hates_ sedatives.

“Did you know you drool in your sleep?” an amused voice asks, and Xanatos snorts, sitting up and brushing his hair out of his face. He’s going to need to find a hairbrush soon, or he’s going to start to bear an unpleasant resemblance to an electrocuted fir tree.

“I,” he says haughtily, “am a Du Crion. If I drool in my sleep, I'm sure it’s adorable. You should feel blessed to have seen it.”

Cody chuckles, putting down his datapad and sinking back in his desk chair. The room they're in is small, well-lit, and almost entirely featureless except for a stack of familiar armor in one corner, neatly polished and arranged. Xanatos seems to have been given the bunk, which is mussed but not enough for two people to have been sharing it, which is a shame. He’s also been divested of his clothes except for a pair of underwear that isn't his, and he brings one leg up, rests his elbows on his knee, and pointedly waves the cuffs at Cody.

“As much as I enjoy having handsome men chain me up naked in their beds,” he says, “I generally appreciate them _asking_ first.”

“Sorry,” Cody says, entirely insincere. “General’s orders. You were released from the medbay into my custody, and you’re supposed to stay cuffed.”

Xanatos scowls. Of _course_ it was Obi-Wan’s idea. He’s never been happier than when he’s putting Xanatos into embarrassing situations, which—well. It would probably work better if Xanatos hadn’t been born without a working sense of shame. Not that he’s ever missed it.

Well, that’s not quite true. He used to feel shame when Feemor beat him in spars, but a few years of Dooku whacking him over the head and dumping him on his ass in three seconds flat cured him of that. _His_ Dooku, at least. This one probably eats his sparring partners.

“You're aware that I can snap these cuffs and have them stuffed up your nose before you can even reach for a blaster, yes?” he drawls, but Cody isn't moving, so he sinks back with a huff, and asks, “Where are my clothes? That was my favorite coat.”

Cody raises a brow at him. “You can use the Force again?” he asks, and when Xanatos makes an impatient noise, he just hums, tapping his fingers against his pad. “For someone who’s chained up, you're not very polite,” he says, though he hardly sounds bothered by it. Amused, more like, and Xanatos will admit to being rather charmed by that unflappability. Even if Cody's apparent deference to Obi-Wan rather sours things.

“I believe I mentioned all the people who have threatened to cut out my tongue?” Xanatos raises a brow. “Would you like to guess the percentage of them who made that threat while I was…restrained?”

“Not relating to the men who apparently like to chain you up in bed, I hope,” Cody says, dry, and then, “Your coat survived. It’s being cleaned. Your boots, too. I sent your shirt and pants to the quartermaster to see if he could find something in your size among our stores, so it won't be much longer. I figured you wouldn’t need clothes in the fresher, anyway.”

“A _fresher_ ,” Xanatos says, and slides off the bed. “There is some mercy in your soul. Where?”

“There's a lot of mercy in my soul,” Cody counters, and rises. “Down the hall. It’s shared, and I have to escort you.”

“It could be in the middle of the mess hall and I wouldn’t mind,” Xanatos informs him, and then pauses. Glances at his bound hands, then grimaces and asks, “A hairbrush?”

Cody blinks, like this is a foreign concept to him, and given the short, tight curls of his hair, it probably is. “There might be one floating around somewhere,” he says. “I’ll ask while you're washing up.” He pauses, looking Xanatos over, and then turns away, to where a footlocker is tucked halfway under the bed. After a moment of digging, he comes up with a grey jacket that’s so ugly it _has_ to be part of a mass-produced uniform, and he offers it to Xanatos with a slightly crooked smile. “Want something to cover up with?”

Xanatos snorts in amusement, but takes the jacket and drapes it over his shoulders as best he can with his hands bound. Cody is a little shorter than him, but not by much, and the jacket doesn’t precisely hide the fact that Xanatos is walking around in his skivvies, but Xanatos doesn’t much care, either. He would have been fine walking without it, but the gesture is a sweet one.

“Not willing to let me steal your blanket to repurpose it as a toga?” he asks sardonically, and Cody looks unimpressed.

“If I let you take my blanket, I'm never getting it back,” he says, “and that one was a gift.”

It did seem rather plusher that Xanatos would have expected for a soldier, but he doesn’t say as much. “And yet you let me sleep on it earlier,” he drawls, even as Cody takes his elbow and opens the door. “Curious.”

“I let you drool on it, yes.” Cody gives him a bland look. “I could have let you wake up on the floor, you know. Last chance to wrap that jacket around your waist, which is what I _intended_ you to do with it.”

“And rob the world of the sight of my bare legs?” Xanatos asks, to cover the fact that that method of usage hadn’t occurred to him. “That would be a crime.”

“Spoken like someone who has more than a passing familiarity with crime.” Cody tugs him to the left, and Xanatos moves with it, keeping a careful eye on his surroundings. It’s clearly a very large ship, and he catches the deck number near a lift, tries to extrapolate based on what he can vaguely feel as far as souls aboard, and then gives it up after a moment. Whatever sort of army Obi-Wan has gotten himself involved with—that the _Jedi Order_ has gotten itself involved with—it’s a very large one, particularly when Xanatos was under the impression that the Republic didn’t _have_ a standing army, and frowned on planets that maintained them.

“I was a _businessman_ ,” Xanatos says, offended by the implication. “Of course I committed crimes.” There are a pair of identical man approaching down the hallway, and there’s still that momentary kick of incredulity, the waver of disbelief that first made him think he was seeing double, but—it’s true. They're perfect images of Cody, just with different hair and scars. The one on the right has an impressive mustache, while the one on the left has a crest of hair and the rest of his head shaved, a single earring in his right ear that looks like it was made from a piece of twisted wire.

“Commander,” the one with the mustache says as the pair come to a halt; he’s eyeing Xanatos warily. “Want another set of eyes?”

“I'm fine, Boil,” Cody answers. “General back yet?”

Boil glances at the other clone, who shakes his head quickly. “Not yet, sir. General Muln was going to land and join him in the mountains, but Waxer said they all think Dooku got away again.”

“Well,” Xanatos says blandly. “Not quite as _handily_ as normal, at least.”

Cody chokes, starts coughing as he quickly turns away from his men, and Xanatos smirks. “Your mustache is quite impressive,” he tells Boil. “Do you wax it?”

“Wax?” Boil repeats suspiciously. “Is that something natural-borns do?”

Natural-borns. Because of _course_ Xanatos managed to pick the one cover story that would be _impossible_ to keep together here, and being reminded of that _again_ is like a glass of cold water upended over his head. “I believe my father had a collection of mustache wax that I set on fire after his death,” he says airily. “It’s likely a trend.”

“Boil, no,” his companion says quickly, catching his arm. “Or at least ask the general about it first.”

“Wooley—”

“Come on,” Cody says, and grabs Xanatos’s elbow again, hustling him past the other clones. “That’s enough chaos sown for the next ten minutes.”

“I was being _polite_ ,” Xanatos says with a smirk. “While you were busy forgetting how to breathe, I might add. Why? Was it something I said?”

Cody gives him a level look that can't quite hide the amusement he’s feeling. “In,” he says, and pushes Xanatos through a door and into a communal fresher. There's a row of sonics along one wall that are mostly unoccupied, and Xanatos gladly sheds the jacket into Cody's arms and opens his mouth.

“Cuffs stay _on_ ,” Cody says firmly. “You don’t need a full range of motion to turn a sonic on.”

Xanatos eyes Cody, then the cuffs, debating just how much of a hassle it will be if he simply snaps them with the Force anyway.

Politely, Cody clears his throat. “As fast as you can break those, I can bodyslam you into the tiles even faster,” he says. “If you’d like to test me, feel free.”

“Is that a _promise_?” Xanatos asks wickedly, and leans in. “Oh, _Commander_. All of this manhandling, and I _thought_ —”

“Go shower,” Cody tells him dryly, bodily turning him towards the stalls and giving him a shove. “If you do that, I’ll find you a hairbrush.”

Xanatos snorts. “If you're trying to buy my cooperation with a _brush_ , I think I gave you the wrong impression of my tastes,” he says, but drags his underwear off and heads for the shower, unselfconscious. “I’ll have you know I'm not cheaply bought.”

“Given the amount of flirting you’ve been doing, that had better be a lie,” Cody says, dry, and when Xanatos glances back at him, he’s at one of the shelving units, digging through the odds and ends there. “Otherwise that’s just not fair.”

“I'm expensive to _buy_ ,” Xanatos counters, switching the sonic on, and sighs in relief at the hum of it. He prefers real water showers whenever he can get them, but sonics are more efficient, even if they're less luxurious. “Anyone I _date_ is to be lauded for their good taste and doted upon appropriately.” Not that he dates at _all_ ; it’s hard to trust himself with deeper sentiments, knowing how easily he fell when his father died. Granta's mother Tura was a relationship that happened when he was still far over the edge into the darkness, and it very nearly ended in disaster because of it.

Gritting his teeth, Xanatos takes a moment to check both the blaster wound in his thigh and the lightsaber wound in his side. Both are healed over, and the blaster one is entirely invisible except for a faint ridge of scar tissue his fingers can just pick out. The lightsaber wound scarred, a neat, circular mark burned through his side, but—Xanatos was expecting that. Lightsaber wounds always scar, in his experience.

Cody makes a noise that could be doubt or bland acknowledgement. “You said you were a businessman,” he says, a deliberate shift of subject. “What business?”

“Mining,” Xanatos says, and then mutters, “I think,” too quietly for a Human to hear, distracted suddenly by wondering if his version in this universe ended up running Offworld as well. He’s going to have to find a very subtle way to read up about himself.

There's no response for long enough that Xanatos shuts off the sonics and turns, aware that Cody hasn’t left but not entirely sure why he’s stopped talking. He’s simply staring at Xanatos, expression unreadable and his emotions not all that much better; Xanatos gets a faint impression that he’s steeling himself, but his focus is a cool thing, steady as he watches. Curious, Xanatos cocks a brow, stepping out of the stall and picking up the borrowed underwear again.

“Commander?” he asks. “Overcome by the sight of me clean and polished?”

“Not when your hair looks like it should have birds nesting in it,” Cody says, and tosses a comb across the room. Xanatos catches it, pulling a face at the sight of cheap plastic, but he doesn’t move to use it, more interested in what’s going on behind Cody's dark eyes.

“Is something wrong?” he asks deliberately, touching a thumb to the edge of his binders. He isn't Mace Windu, able to break something just by looking at it, but these are mass-produced, simply made. It will be easy enough to crack them if he needs to.

Cody's eyes flicker down the room, to where a pair of clones are showering, and then he crosses the space between him and Xanatos in two long strides, catches him by the arm, and drags him towards the door. There's no sense of impending violence, no anger, so Xanatos contains the impulse to propel him straight up into the ceiling, instead letting himself be marched at double-time down the hall and back to Cody's room. Cody shoves him through the door, then steps in after him, seals the door, and locks it, turning on the privacy light.

Then, deliberately, Cody reaches down and switches off his comm.

Thoughts racing, Xanatos flicks a glance at the darkened device, then up at Cody's face. He’s still steady, but—there is, just slightly, an edge of unsettled nerves, or at least the awareness that he’s doing something he probably shouldn’t. And—

Well. It’s interesting, Xanatos thinks, sinking back against the wall and cocking his head. This isn't what he would have expected.

“Dooku was making clones,” Cody says, quiet. “Of the original Xanatos.”

“I prefer _body doubles_ ,” Xanatos says lightly, though he doesn’t look away from Cody. There's a faint quickening of his pulse, an edge of adrenaline rising. “I thought we had established this.”

“ _You're_ a clone of the first Xanatos,” Cody says, stepping closer. “But you're trying to pass yourself off as the original.”

Xanatos freezes, and—his vague sort of plan hadn’t gone this far when he’s come up with it on the fly and thought himself so clever for it. Hadn’t accounted for _more_ clones, a whole army of them, and people who care about the _act_ of cloning and aren’t simply overcome with awe or surprise at the very idea of cloned Jedi. He _can't_ pass himself off as the original, even assuming he could spin some sort of story about how he wasn’t actually dead all those years. There's no frame of reference for understanding his alter’s actions, no concrete knowledge of any events that he can confidently say haven’t shifted, but—

At the same time he’s said _far_ too much in Cody's earshot that makes things questionable. He’s talked about Dooku, about Qui-Gon, about twice-bedamned _Feemor_ , but he’s also asked questions about the most basic things, failed to know the most obvious facts of this universe. Xanatos has no idea what Cody even thinks right now, and he shuffles through several options rather desperately, discarding most of them, and finally settles on keeping Cody talking.

Cody thinks he’s trying to hide the fact that he’s a clone. All right then. Xanatos can play into his expectations, and let Cody build the story for him. After all, Cody _is_ a clone; he’ll know better than anyone what’s possible.

“A clone?” he says archly, with perfectly pitched disinterest and amusement. “ _Me_? I can't imagine how you came to that clearly incorrect conclusion, Commander—”

Cody's hand hits the metal right beside his head, one loud thud of impact, and Xanatos goes still. Snake-still, ready to strike, but Cody meets his eyes across the handful of inches separating them and doesn’t so much as blink.

“Stop it,” Cody says quietly. “Pretending to be someone you're not isn't going to work. You have no idea what’s going on, do you?”

The fact that Cody can see through him is…unpleasant, even if it’s likely unsurprising. Xanatos takes a breath, closing his eyes for a moment. “War,” he says casually. “Of course I'm aware, especially given Dooku's _hand_ in things—”

“He’s _leading_ the Separatists. It’s a galaxy-wide civil war, and he’s on the side enslaving planets and massacring civilians.”

Xanatos’s mouth clicks shut.

Of all the possible things Cody could have said, that’s both the most unexpected and the most impossible. Dooku wouldn’t. Even this version, even if he would torture Xanatos, there have to be _lines_. The idea of him crossing this one—of leading a war _against the Republic_ —

Looking like Xanatos just proved his point for him, Cody inclines his head, though he doesn’t pull away. “You didn’t know,” he says. “Dooku kept you somewhere, raised to be his apprentice, and you didn’t have any idea. And he gave you memories that weren’t yours.”

Xanatos’s breath tangles in his throat. Memory transfers are…almost impossible, outside of trained Force-users. Things get fragmented, fall apart, don’t end up in the right order. As far as excuses go for Xanatos’s different memories, it’s the perfect explanation. Xanatos doesn’t even have to confirm it, since Cody's already decided.

But—

It sits wrong. Some little bit of conscience niggles at Xanatos’s soul, the unease of claiming to be a clone in front of an _actual_ clone rising, and he closes his eyes, curses himself.

 _This_ is what comes from clinging so closely to the light. _Sentiment_ , and Xanatos hates it, hates the urge to be _good_ that he knows he shouldn’t resist. There's a slippery slope on the other side, and maybe claiming to be a clone won't change anything, but it clearly means something to Cody. Xanatos _can't_ twist that, even if it’s useful.

Damn his conscience, and damn Feemor, who cultivated it.

“It’s not…cloning,” he says carefully, precisely, and Cody pauses. Slowly, Xanatos takes a breath, opens his eyes again, and holds Cody's gaze. “Not precisely. But…I do have some of the same memories as him. The original. The early ones, mostly.”

Cody stares at him for another moment, then pulls back, folding his arms over his chest. “Explain it to me,” he says, and it’s not a suggestion.

Xanatos snorts, taking two precise steps sideways and sinking down on the edge of the bed. “I don’t understand it myself,” he says, which is true enough. He still has no idea how Dooku dragged him here. “But as far as I knew until a few hours ago, Dooku was a Jedi, and I…wasn’t.”

“General Kenobi said you were a Dark Jedi,” Cody offers, mild, and Xanatos snorts. He’s still holding the comb, and he sets it aside, then tangles his fingers together as best he can.

“More a _failed_ Jedi,” he says, on the edge of vicious. “I was tempted, and I fell, but I managed to stumble my way back before I did irreparable harm to the galaxy. With the help of Jedi Master Dooku, of course.”

Cody is silent, watching him, and Xanatos takes another breath, smooths his hair back, and gives Cody a crooked smirk. “I assume it was the same for Dooku's other prisoner. Different memories, a different set of values. He was…someone else.”

“Someone created in the image of a person Dooku knew. And the general knew,” Cody says, and Xanatos inclines his head.

“Unfortunately,” he says bitterly, “it would seem things didn’t play out here quite as I remember them doing so. You walked in on the aftermath of me discovering that.”

Cody pauses for a long moment, then says, “You weren’t going to tell anyone.”

“Of course I wasn’t,” Xanatos says, impatient. “I don’t know you, Commander, and I don’t know anything about _this_ Obi-Wan except for the fact that he’s an insufferable buffoon who’s still too fond of his lightsaber.”

The corner of Cody's mouth twitches. “So you're a clone who’s not a clone, with a different set of memories,” he concludes, and Xanatos tries to come up with an argument, fails, and sighs in exasperation.

“Yes, and until I find Dooku and shake all the required answers out of him, I would greatly appreciate it if you keep this to yourself, Commander.”

Cody raises a brow, quite clearly unimpressed. “You want me to lie to my general. For _you_.”

“Yes, for me,” Xanatos says crossly. “Dooku wants me as his apprentice, and I would rather the Jedi Temple did not whisk me away into their custody before I find a way to—to go _back_ , because I have a son who is expecting me to visit and I _need_ to be sure that my bastard of a Grandmaster did not drag me here and _strand_ me!”

His voice cracks. It would be mortifying if Xanatos weren’t so furious that it’s hard to so much as think straight.

“A son,” Cody says slowly, and he’s still watching, unmoving. “Who you remember?”

“Of course I remember him,” Xanatos says, precise and cutting, and the vulnerability of having to _talk_ without being in control of the conversation is _deeply_ unpleasant. “He was _real_ , thank you. I'm my own person, not the same as… _him_ , whoever he was.”

Something flickers across Cody's face, and he’s silent for a long, long moment, then steps back, bracing his shoulder against the wall and leaning there. “You realize how that sounds, right?” he asks, and when Xanatos frowns at him, he raises a brow right back. “False memories could be implanted in a clone, especially if a Force-user is involved. If Dooku wanted a malleable apprentice, maybe he’s looking for the right combination of past trauma to create a weak point.”

Something cold washes through Xanatos, and it’s hard to breathe. There's a wrench of _doubt_ , gutting in its depth, and he twitches hard, the lockbox at the foot of the bed rattling. Cody's datapad goes sliding across his desk, clatters against the wall, and Xanatos grits his teeth and closes his eyes, grabbing that image of water in the darkness, the slow ripple of it moving with his breaths as he desperately tries to grasp at control.

Panic. That’s what he’s feeling right now, foremost and ferocious. Panic that’s sick and dark and full of doubt, because—it’s not _unreasonable_ , as far as conclusions go. False memories are certainly simple to do, though the technique is a Dark one without exception.

Fury is second, at Cody for the suggestion. At _himself_ , for entertaining it. And at Dooku, of course, for providing the basis for it. But—it’s a rage that’s knee-jerk and not wholly meant, and Xanatos curls forward, pressing the heels of his hands to his forehead as he tries to breathe evenly around the press of emotion.

He has to look at this _logically_. Dooku's words can't be trusted, because he’s fallen to the Dark Side, and everything could be a manipulation. That leaves the proof of what Xanatos saw with his own eyes in the dungeon, and…that’s thin on the ground. The Jedi Xanatos is about the sum of it, and Xanatos thinks of his bare cheek, the lack of burn scar, and bites down hard on the inside of his own cheek.

Memory implantation is possible. Cloning is possible. If Dooku wanted to convince them he had dragged them across dimensions, it would be, well. Not simple but certainly _possible_. And the benefit to Dooku would be potential apprentices with a full range of memories, who didn’t need to be taught the very basic parts of Force techniques or lightsaber combat, and whose varied backgrounds might offer precisely the combination needed to make that apprentice fall in line with Dooku.

At the same time, Xanatos _remembers_. He remembers right up to the moment when Dooku appeared in that spaceport, and the minor irritation of a scratch on the inside of his wrist right where his sleeve brushed, and a million other tiny moments in the past that surely no one would be able to implant.

“Bold of you,” he manages, the words rasping in his throat, “to assume anyone could _recreate_ a man as perfect as I am.”

There's a quiet snort, a step. A hand closes around Xanatos’s shoulder, and Cody says quietly, “I’ll tell the general I think you're a clone with a partial memory transfer.”

Nothing else, that implies. He’s leaving Xanatos to have his crisis in peace, without Obi-Wan’s obnoxious interest, which Xanatos appreciates rather more than he could have thought possible. “Thank you,” he says. “I knew I would win you over eventually, Commander.”

“Just don’t cry on my blanket. Salt’s bad for it,” Cody says, though the light squeeze of his hand undercuts the order.

There's a chime from the door, and with a frown Cody turns to answer it, but Xanatos doesn’t move. He stays where he is and just breathes, gathering all the little pieces of his composure and trying to stuff them back into place, and—it’s mostly successful. After all, Telosian high society isn't precisely forgiving when it comes to slips, and Xanatos has always been good at masks.

Well. He _thinks_ he’s always been good at masks.

With a sound of irritation, Xanatos crushes the thought, drives it down into the dirt and determines to ignore it, because it’s useless and will only cause him more frustration. He’s going to keep operating under the assumption that everything he remembers is real, that Dooku dragged him and the Jedi version of himself across dimensions to torment them in his tacky dungeon, and that there's a way back.

This conversation just means Xanatos has extra incentive to hang Dooku over a cliff and shake the answers out of him.

A sharp click right next to his ear makes Xanatos twitch, and he lifts his head just in time for the binders to snap open, dropping off his arms and clattering to the floor. A little startled, Xanatos blinks at them, then raises his gaze to Cody, and promptly gets hit in the face with a tangle of cloth. He makes a sound of deep offense, and Cody snorts.

“Quartermaster came through,” he says. “Get dressed.”

“Oh? Have you been overwhelmed with beauty?” Xanatos asks. “Are you finally at the edge of your control, looking at me—”

“I can always make you eat that shirt instead of wear it,” Cody says placidly, and Xanatos snorts in amusement and pulls it on, standing to manage the breeches. Jedi clothing, unfortunately, but—well. It’s only the white undershirt and the pants, and he can ignore that fact easily enough.

“And waste my mouth by gagging me? And here I thought you were a clever man.” He adjusts the cuffs, and the shirt is slightly too broad at the shoulders, which is _deeply_ aggravating if these really are Obi-Wan’s, and a little too short in the arms, but—it will be better than walking around in nothing but Cody's jacket.

When he looks up, Cody is watching him again, expression unreadable but the lines around his eyes more visible than normal. “Okay?” Cody asks, and there's a flicker of true concern in it that might be slightly gutting.

Xanatos closes his eyes, smiles. If it’s bitter—well. He has reason for that.

“Always,” he promises, and reaches for the comb. There’s no use in drowning, so he may as well swim.


	5. Chapter 5

“I am not putting those back on,” Xanatos says without lifting his head, busy trying to break into Cody's pad. Cody is mostly amused watching him try, because all of Xanatos’s attempts at the passcode seem to be devolving into personal insults. There's no way he _actually_ thinks that Cody would make _I suck wampa toes_ his entry code.

“You're going to have to eventually,” Cody points out, dropping the binders on the bed next to him.

That gets him a narrow look from under a fall of deep black hair. “I have to do no such thing,” Xanatos returns precisely. “But if you think you can make me, Commander, you are welcome to try.”

Cody raises a brow, trying not to show any humor. “Bold words from the man wearing borrowed underwear. Especially when he can't even get my pad open.”

Xanatos pulls a face at him, deliberately dropping the pad to the side. “I'm sure it’s all boring little love letters between you and Obi-Wan,” he says dismissively. “And opening it will destroy all of my remaining faith in humanity—”

“There's a picture on there of Obi-Wan passed out in his dinner tray,” Cody says, and long fingers twitch like Xanatos is only _just_ retraining the urge to snatch the pad up again. Xanatos’s eyes slide from the pad to Cody, narrowing, and Cody keeps his face as bland and innocent as possible. He’s had practice; even Alpha-17 can't read him when he _really_ wants to get away with something.

“Well,” Xanatos says after a moment. “I see we each have something the other party desires. Perhaps negotiations are in order.”

Cody very deliberately rolls his eyes. “These aren’t negotiations. You're technically a prisoner, if I might remind you.”

Xanatos snorts, unimpressed, and sits back, deliberately lounging against Cody's pillows. Cody would buy the spoiled cat act, except for how sharp Xanatos’s smile is; he’s met people in the Senate who _wish_ they smiled like that, cunning and dangerous. “It’s impressive what lifting _technically_ is doing in that sentence,” he says lazily, raising a brow.

“I could just _make_ you put them on,” Cody points out, amused more than anything. Obi-Wan’s caution is still there, tucked away in the back of his mind, and Cody _knows_ how dangerous Xanatos potentially is, saw him face Dooku with no Force connection and still manage to cut off a hand when no one else has been able to _touch_ the bastard. But…it’s not a danger to _him_ , and he knows that in a quiet, instinctive way, the same way he can pick out a sniper’s perch and peg a politician at thirty paces. Xanatos isn't offering violence. And at this point, that’s a deliberate choice, made and kept to.

Dark eyes narrow, and Xanatos looks him over like he’s expecting Cody to back down at one dark look. “Could you,” he drawls.

Cody has no idea, because Xanatos might not be a Jedi but he is a Force-user. Still, Cody's never in his life backed down from anything, even when he potentially should have, so he just raises a brow right back and says, “Was that an offer to show you?”

Xanatos’s smile is smug and lazy, and he leans back, tilts his head. “Are you going to wrestle me down, Commander?” he asks, intent. “Pin me to your bed and cuff my hands?”

Cody would have to be made of stone not to feel _something_ at those words coming from a beautiful man who’s already sprawled out on his bed, but he can also see the calculation in Xanatos’s face, the assessment. Obi-Wan’s flirting is quick and easy and natural; Xanatos’s is a game, a test. He’s looking for a reaction, and playing the flirt gets him one.

He doesn’t seem to care _what_ that reaction is, either. The idea of violence in answer amuses him just as much as someone flirting back, and in light of that the fact that he was giving the magna guards lip when Cody found him is a lot less surprising.

“I’d prefer it if you just let me put them on,” Cody says, mild, because he knows how to handle Obi-Wan’s flirting. Amusement is always a good response there. But—this is something a little different. Xanatos seems willing enough to go along, but—

Cody watches him, and he can see the cracks around the edges that the flirting is meant to hide. All the attitude, all the audacity, it’s all smokescreen. Xanatos _means_ it, without a doubt, but he’s also tucking all of the revelations of the past hour away behind it, inviting reaction so that he has somewhere else to focus. Like baiting a nexu in the name of ignoring the building on fire around him.

For a moment, Cody weighs his options. Take the bait, take the distraction, let Xanatos drag him along through a bickering match that may or may not end in Cody's favor, or ignore the distraction, cut through it and pull Xanatos up with him.

“Boring,” Xanatos says with a predator’s smile, and the slide of his leg as he brings a knee up shouldn’t be as risqué as someone else starting to unbutton their shirt, but he manages to make it that way. “What’s the fun of giving in without making you work for it, Commander?”

Cody meets dark blue eyes across the expanse of the bed, and hums. Folds his arms over his chest, and says deliberately, “They still haven’t caught Dooku.”

Xanatos stills, eyes narrowing. He stares at Cody like Cody's some sort of snake dropped on his feet, wary and perfectly frozen, and then says, “Yes, well, Obi-Wan’s ability to turn simple missions into disaster zones with limited escape routes is well-documented. I'm not sure what that has to do with me in your bed, Commander.”

“Getting frustrated about the lack of answers is natural,” Cody says, and the breath Xanatos takes says he hit the sore spot squarely. “Especially when Dooku's still loose.”

“I already gave Obi-Wan a _hand_ ,” Xanatos says, though his wary gaze hasn’t shifted from Cody. “I can't imagine what more you want from me.”

Cody can't help it; he snorts, taking a step forward to sit down on the edge of the bed. “More hand jokes?” he asks dryly.

Xanatos’s smirk is entirely pleased. “Well, you must _hand_ it to me, Commander. I did manage what Obi-Wan has apparently so far failed to do.”

“The first time Dooku fought Obi-Wan and his apprentice,” Cody says deliberately, “he almost killed them both. General Yoda only just managed to save them in time.”

From this close, it’s easy to see the way Xanatos’s expression twists, just briefly, before he manages to smooth it out again. It makes Cody think of his words, the careful carelessness of his body language when he’d said _I was tempted, and I fell, but I managed to stumble my way back before I did irreparable harm to the galaxy. With the help of Jedi Master Dooku, of course_. And—whether it’s the truth or not, it’s an experience that Xanatos had, even if it’s just in his head. It still means something.

“Failed _spectacularly_ , then,” Xanatos says airily. “Still, I don’t see why Qui-Gon’s little tag-along should matter to _me_ —”

“Xanatos,” Cody says, and picks up the binders. He meets Xanatos’s gaze, and holds out a hand, not pushing, just waiting.

Xanatos’s eyes flicker from the hand to Cody's face, and his mouth tightens. He doesn’t move, doesn’t brush Cody off, doesn’t try to push him away, just looks, pauses. Takes a breath, and then says, “I haven’t finished brushing my hair.”

It’s a plea more than a protest. One last bit of front before he gives in, and Cody knows it, knows Xanatos can see that he knows it. It’s another little crack showing, and Cody weighs it for a moment, weighs Obi-Wan’s orders and how many of them he’s already stretched, weighs the way Xanatos’s eyes are fixed on him, and then breathes out.

“I’ll brush it for you,” he offers, not sure if it’s the right response. Not sure _what_ the right response would be, in this, because there's no shift in Xanatos’s expression, no change in the way he’s watching. Still, after a long moment, Xanatos reaches up and lays a hand over Cody's.

“Oh, very well,” he says crossly, like Cody can't feel the way those long fingers tighten around his own. “If you pull, though, I _will_ send you right through the ceiling, Commander, mark my words.”

Cody snorts, pulling Xanatos’s hand towards him and snapping the binder over it. Xanatos doesn’t exactly offer up his other wrist, but he makes no move to protest when Cody grips it, fitting the other cuff below the sharp jut of a wrist bone. The click of them locking shut makes something in the line of Xanatos’s mouth tighten, and Cody looks up to hold his gaze, then deliberately catches his fingers. Thinks of clones, and the lost look on Xanatos’s face that was so quickly hidden, and the jarring realization of what Dooku had done, and squeezes.

“It will be fine,” he says, and doesn’t mean his skill with a hairbrush.

Xanatos’s breath is a harsh thing, and he pulls away from Cody, deliberately turns to give him his back. Hiding again, using an excuse to keep Cody from seeing any of his vulnerability, and with his face hidden the sharp edges in his voice are almost convincing when he says, “Your ability to play the hairdresser aside, Commander, I refuse to _remain_ your prisoner when we both know I'm fully capable of breaking every bone in your body with a twitch of my finger.”

“Yeah?” Cody raises a brow, though most of his attention is on the thick, dark hair he’s pulling back over Xanatos’s shoulders. He’s never brushed hair before, and Xanatos has a lot of it, not to mention an attitude that means if Cody does it wrong he’ll be hearing about it until he finally marches on. “You keep making threats, but our template was called the Jedi-Killer.”

“Ah yes,” Xanatos says sardonically. “Terrifying. However, Commander, if I might remind you—I am _not_ a Jedi.” He pauses, deliberate, and then says, “Work your way up from the bottom. And by the sacred fountains, don’t _pull_.”

Not a Jedi, Cody thinks with a snort. But…not a Sith, either. He’s sure of that much, just from Xanatos’s actions. In the dungeon, when the stairs ere falling—the only smart choice was to leave. Even someone who was simply practical would have left when Cody told them to. But Xanatos didn’t.

Carefully, as gently as he can, he starts working the wide comb through Xanatos’s hair, starting near the bottom and untangling strands as he moves up. He tries to keep it brusque, impersonal, but from this close it’s too easy to feel Xanatos’s desperate tension, to see the way he has his hands locked together like he’s afraid they're going to tremble if he loosens his grip. And—Cody almost regrets telling him his suspicion about Dooku's actions, but. Better to have it in the open, an option and a likely explanation, rather than letting him ignore the possibility. Cody operates in a world where the most likely explanation is usually the right one, and cloning and memory transfer seems a lot more plausible than travel between different universes.

Then again, Cody supposes that with Jedi, or former Jedi, any crazy explanation could end up being true.

“Mess hall should be quiet right about now,” he says into the silence. “You're not getting those binders off again, though.”

“Going to feed me by hand, Commander?” Xanatos drawls, though his hear doesn’t seem to be in it. “I'm partial to Telosian grapes, particularly the black ones—”

“What a coincidence,” Cody says dryly. “So am I. You're getting protein rations, though.”

Xanatos’s snort is all amusement, and something in the line of his shoulders eases, just faintly. Cody drags the comb through the untangled strands of his hair, a long sweep that’s strangely hypnotic, and watches the way he consciously relaxes himself. He’s seen Obi-Wan do the same, even if he’s sure that saying as much won't get him any favors. Jedi technique, he thinks, and—it’s interesting, that’s all. Xanatos might not be a Jedi, but the Jedi shaped him.

“How old were you?” he asks quietly. “When you left the Order.”

“ _Left_ ,” Xanatos repeats, a note of sardonic humor to it. “What polite phrasing, Commander. I _left_ at sixteen, and Dooku found me a year later, drowning in my own darkness.”

That makes it sound like there's a hell of a story behind it, and from Obi-Wan’s reaction, it’s probably roughly similar to what happened to the original Xanatos. He makes a sound of acknowledgement, settling Xanatos’s hair over his shoulders, then slides off the bed and lays the comb on the small shelf beside it. When he turns around, Xanatos is watching him narrowly, an intent in his expression that’s almost startling.

“Why ask, Commander,” he says, soft, “if you think I'm nothing but a clone?”

Cody raises a pointed brow. “Nothing but?” he repeats, and Xanatos pauses, then grimaces in silent apology.

“An inappropriate phrase,” he allows. “Given the company. What I _intended_ to convey was, why ask after memories that may be fake?”

Cody weighs his response for a long moment. “Because they're not fake to you,” he says finally. “They feel real, right?”

Xanatos’s breath out is long and slow, almost a hiss, and he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t actually need to.

“Boots on,” Cody says, not unsympathetic. “Not being locked in a room might help.”

“I will assume that this dungeon at least isn't rigged to explode,” Xanatos says, rising and brushing past Cody to reach the pair of boots sitting by the door. “In a grandiose show of wasteful stupidity that would put the Senate to shame.”

Amused, Cody watches him shove his feet into the boots, one of the pairs the quartermaster keeps in case Obi-Wan ruins yet another set, and lets himself imagine both Obi-Wan and Xanatos’s response to being told just whose clothes he’s wearing. Cody _won't_ tell Obi-Wan, of course, because Obi-Wan is his general. But it’s funny to think about. “Let me guess, you're a senator too?”

Xanatos scoffs. “I would rather kiss an Ewok,” he says succinctly. “Supreme Chancellor Organa is the only halfway decent thing to come out of the Senate in a century, and I put that down to Queen Organa’s influence—”

Cody blinks, replays that, but he didn’t mishear. “Chancellor _Organa_? Not Chancellor Palpatine?”

Xanatos pauses, apparently caught off guard, and frowns. “Who in the light of the Force is Palpatine?”

Well, Cody thinks, and weighs his response. That’s…interesting. Things can get jumbled when transferring memories, but—that seems like an odd thing to jumble. “Sheev Palpatine, former senator from Naboo, who was elected Supreme Chancellor eleven years ago.”

Xanatos looks mildly disturbed. “From Naboo?” he asks. “But Amidala is the Human senator from Naboo, and that doesn’t sound like a Gungan name.”

Palpatine as a Gungan. That’s…a lot to think about. Cody digests it for a moment, then says, “He’s Human. You know who was Naboo’s senator before Amidala?”

Xanatos wrinkles his nose, which isn't an expression Cody would have expected him to make, but—it’s kind of amusingly cute. “I've hardly had cause to study the political history of one particular Mid Rim backwater that hardly ever deigns to trade with Telos IV,” he says, offended, like it’s Naboo’s fault he’s doesn’t know more about it. “Particularly when the Supreme Chancellor comes from _Alderaan_.”

“Not right now he doesn’t,” Cody says dryly, and keys the door open. When Xanatos stalks out and makes a sharp right turn, Cody catches his elbow, steering him back around to the left. “And where do you think you're going?”

“To pickpocket an unlocked pad off of the first hapless idiot I come across,” Xanatos says without a hint of shame, though he lets himself be redirected without a fuss. “If I'm going to be reduced to searching the holonet for the name of every major politician in power at this moment, you can't expect me to do it on _yours_.”

“Do that _after_ dinner,” Cody says dryly.

“A dinner of protein rations,” Xanatos says disdainfully. “I have an alternate proposal. _You_ eat the protein rations, and _I_ will fling myself from the top of the tallest lift shaft, and then we’ll both have a vastly improved evening.”

“That would make it hard for me to keep an eye on you,” Cody tells him, and ignores the sideways look he gets from Crys as he steers Xanatos into the lift he’s occupying.

“ _Blond_ ,” Xanatos says delightedly, ignoring him, and smirks at Crys. “I must say, that is a _charming_ look on you. I appreciate the color-coordination with your armor more than I can say.”

Both of Crys's brows rise. “Thanks,” he says, halfway to a question.

Cody bites back a sigh, and makes a note not to let Xanatos meet Rex. One comment like that and Rex will be red for _days_. “Aren’t prisoners supposed to be seen and not heard?” he asks pointedly.

Xanatos turns that smirk on him, a light in his eyes that Cody recognizes from Obi-Wan at his most unpredictable. “Commander, you _must_ know by now that if you want me quiet, you’d best put my mouth to other uses.”

“Eating,” Cody says, perfectly mild, even as Crys chokes and starts coughing. “Yes, that’s where we’re headed.”

“Only if you have no imagination,” Xanatos says airily.

“None at all,” Cody confirms, entirely bland, and Xanatos’s scoff is mildly flattering. “Crys, any luck?”

It takes Crys a moment to stop laughing, and he clears his throat, straightens guiltily. “No, sir,” he answers. “The captain’s sending back another couple of droids to see what they know, but I haven’t found anything about Dooku yet.”

Cody hasn’t gotten word of his ship making it past the blockade yet, either, which means he’s hiding somewhere on the planet. With a faint frown, he nods his thanks, then asks Xanatos, “You think you can bear to pull yourself away from your infatuation with blonds for long enough to make it to the mess?”

“Jealous, Commander?” Xanatos counters instantly. “Don’t worry, my tastes are _broad_ , I promise.”

Cody catches the bound hands before they can reach his shoulder for an expressive pat, lifting a brow. Xanatos gives him a smug, lazy smile in return, and Cody can't help but snort. _Shameless_ isn't a strong enough word, but—unlike some people, who look at clones like they're pieces of meat, Cody doesn’t feel like Xanatos means it as anything more than obnoxious flirting, aimed at flustering or exasperating.

After growing up with Bly, Fox, and the other commanders, Cody likes to think he’s decent at dealing with obnoxious. It doesn’t tend to fluster him, and that lack of reaction alone seems to make Xanatos more willing to listen to what he’s told. That’s amusing, too, and there's an urge, deeply buried and tightly contained, to just…push that, but Cody squashes it.

“In public? What would your son say?” he asks dryly.

Dark humor sparks, shot through with something close to grief, and Xanatos leans back against the wall of the lift, watching him. “Given that Granta is currently sixteen, I don’t believe he would have much of an opinion beyond _ew_ ,” Xanatos counters, and Cody snorts.

He can see the edge in Xanatos’s face, though, the tension winding tighter up his spine, and he flicks a glance at Crys, then says, “If he’s somewhere we can get to, we’ll get you back to him, Xanatos.”

“Excuse my lack of optimism in thinking Obi-Wan will go out of his way to do _anything_ for me,” Xanatos bites out, practically bristling. “After he _stabbed me_ , I feel as if I should keep my expectations low—”

There's clearly no use arguing that Obi-Wan is fundamentally kind; Cody doesn’t have much of an idea what sort of history was between Obi-Wan and the original Xanatos, but it definitely wasn’t any sort of pleasant, judging by the reactions both of them have had. Cody knows better than to put his foot in that kind of thing. Still, Xanatos looks like he’s about to do something dramatic and angry, and Crys likely won't react, but—

Cody steps forward, catches Xanatos’s wrist above the binder, and says, “General Kenobi isn't the only one here.”

Xanatos stares at his for a long moment, eyes narrowed, and then says coolly, “Help for a fellow clone, Commander?”

Crys's sharp inhale sounds like the crack of metal in the tense air.

“Help for someone who needs it,” Cody counters, though he can't entirely deny the clone comment. The odds of Xanatos _not_ being a clone are…slim, and he doesn’t seem to enjoy them. Not that Cody can blame him, entirely. He grew up with every second of his identity centered around being a clone, being one of millions all trained the same way, from the same source, and he can't quite imagine not knowing, let alone finding out later when there's a whole life already in his head.

“Someone who’s a clone,” Xanatos says, silken, almost threatening, and Cody sighs through his nose, not impressed. He gives Xanatos a look, and Xanatos huffs and subsides, slumping back against the wall and picking distractedly at the binders.

“I,” he says pointedly, “want my coat back. And my boots. They were _expensive_.”

“So were the ones you're wearing,” Cody says, which is a complete lie, and they both know it.

“These are _Jedi_ boots,” Xanatos says, offended. “I spent twelve years of my life as a Jedi, Commander, and you cannot sell _Obi-Wan’s cast offs_ as high fashion or I will punt you out the nearest airlock—”

“Then who will brush your hair for you?” Cody asks mildly, entirely entertained by the way Xanatos’s expression twists with affronted rage.

“Crys,” Xanatos says promptly, and Crys's eyes widen. He slides back, but the lift is only so big, and from the slant of Xanatos’s smirk, retreat might as well be an invitation to pounce. He shifts forward, quick, like a striking snake, and says, “Crys _clearly_ has better fashion sense regardless—”

Cody catches him by the shoulder as the lift comes to a stop, and redirects him right out the open door. “Crys has a job to do,” he says, and Xanatos slants him a sideways look that Cody can't quite read.

“And _your_ job, Commander?” he asks silkily. “Surely Obi-Wan can't even lace his boots without you by his side.”

“If you can't tell that his boots don’t lace up, you're not offended enough by _those_ boots to make me go out of my way to get yours back,” Cody informs him. “And right now, you're my job.”

Xanatos pauses, looking conflicted, and then snorts. “You're making this too easy,” he complains, and Cody snorts. “No, I object, if I don’t have to work to make the salacious implication, it loses at _least_ half of its charm.”

“A tragedy,” Cody says dryly. “Guess you’ll just have to earn your keep some other way.”

There's a startled pause, just like last time, and then Xanatos laughs. He stops leaning back against Cody's grip, letting himself be guided more easily, and says, “You should come with a warning label, Commander. That sense of humor is just another weapon to be deployed, isn't it?”

“It’s not the only one,” Cody says, and—he shouldn’t be joking around, technically. Xanatos is officially an enemy, or at the very least a party in whatever Dooku was doing, and Obi-Wan was clear about keeping him contained at all times. But—

A Jedi clone, Cody thinks, and his skin prickles. If there are _Jedi_ clones, that has to mean something. The clones were made for the Jedi, but—Jedi clones change that completely.

Before Xanatos can even open his mouth to answer, Cody's comm beeps, and he stops short, raising it. Waxer’s code is incoming, and he feels a trip in his chest, a flicker of alarm that rises sharply as he accepts the transmission.

“Cody,” Obi-Wan says over the line, and Cody swallows, tries not to let his tension show.

“General,” he answers. “Waxer is…”

There's a pause, startled. “Oh, not at all,” Obi-Wan says. “He was kind enough to lend me his comm, seeing as mine fell victim to rather too much electricity.”

The magna guards, Cody thinks. Obi-Wan’s _good_ at fighting them, and he tries to engage them so the clones won't have to. Breathing out, he says, “Thank you, sir. Sorry.”

“It’s quite all right, Cody,” Obi-Wan says quietly, and there's warmth in his voice. “I won't let anything happen to Waxer before he gets back to see Numa again.”

Cody can't help but smile. “Yes, sir. Something you needed, General?”

Obi-Wan’s sigh is tired. “Dooku seems to have vanished into the mountains, but our fighters haven’t caught him trying to leave the planet just yet. Garen and I are going to follow him on foot, but our squad needs supplies and reinforcements.”

Cody pauses, struck by a thought, and looks up to where Xanatos is watching him carefully. He raises a brow, and Xanatos’s mouth tightens, but he nods shortly.

“I can follow him,” he says, cool, but loud enough for the comm to pick up clearly. “I felt the weight of the Dark Side around him, and I was the last one close to him. If you need someone to find him, I will do it.”

“Yes, well, I'm sure you're very familiar with that sense of the Dark Side, Xanatos,” Obi-Wan says, cutting. “It’s out of the question. You and Dooku are staying far apart—”

“I already gave you a _hand_ with him, didn’t I?” Xanatos drawls, and ignores the look Cody levels at him. “I assure you, Obi-Wan, your greatest risk in allowing me close to Dooku is my burning urge to push him off a very tall cliff. I would hardly _join_ him.”

“Sir,” Cody cuts in, keeps his voice quiet, respectful. “I think it’s a good idea. And I’ll keep Xanatos under control.” Xanatos opens his mouth, but before he can say what he’s obviously thinking, Cody adds pointedly, “He’ll promise to behave.”

Xanatos’s sigh is loud and irritated, though Cody isn't sure if it’s because he’s being manipulated into a promise of good behavior or because Cody interrupted whatever raunchy joke he was about to make. “Yes, yes, my word on the Force that I will do precisely as the good commander tells me at all times. Even if it promises to be _appallingly_ dull.”

There's a long moment of silence, then a quiet breath. “Very well,” Obi-Wan says, faintly tight. “Commander, I will have Waxer send you our exact location. We’ll need enough supplies for several days, I believe.”

An instinct Cody's learned to trust, over the course of the war. “Yes, sir,” he acknowledges. “I’ll bring a squad down within the hour.”

“Thank you, Commander. And be _careful_.”

No question who Cody's supposed to be careful of. He waits a moment for anything else, then closes the channel and glances up, to where Xanatos is frowning.

“You really do have to behave,” he says dryly. “Obi-Wan _hates_ camping.”

“Yes, well, _that_ we have in common,” Xanatos says, but it’s absent. He glances sideways, out towards the planet they're orbiting, and his frown deepens. “Dooku _is_ in the mountains,” he says, like it’s an indisputable fact. “But…I don’t believe he’s the only one.”

Jedi feelings, Cody thinks with a touch of resignation. Apparently they're not just limited to current Jedi.

“I’ll tell them to pack extra,” he says with a sigh, and Xanatos slants him a smirk that’s not nearly as grating as it probably should be.

“Do cheer up, Commander,” he says. “You should have at _least_ four hours of Obi-Wan and I being miserable about hiking before we remember we’d really rather kill each other than suffer together.”

“Joy,” Cody says, perfectly bland, and turns them towards the closest hangar instead of the mess.


End file.
